"S"

729. Sabbath, a Dull Day to Many

I was awakened at six o'clock, in the Hartz mountains, by the cheerful notes of a trumpet playing a sweet, enlivening German air; it struck me that was a right fitting way to begin the Sabbath—to wake up with music, to leave off sleep with a dream of angels singing the songs of heaven, and to begin the day by uniting in their praise. Let the Sabbath always begin so—not with the dull, solemn note of the sackbut, but with psaltery and harp of joyful sound. Alas! with many the cry is, "Here's another dull day, in which the Crystal Palace is shut up, and all amusement denied us!" An English Sabbath is called by many a dull and dreary day! Ah! ye miserable heathens, well may you speak so: it must be dreary to you; but to the genuine Christian, the thought that the world's burden is laid aside, and that now he is to commune with heaven, is as the sweet sound of the trumpet waking him to a day of feasting and delight.

730. Sacramentarianism, Deceitfulness of

I see now in vision a company of men gathering herbs along the slopes of the Seven Hills of Rome; with mystic rites they cull those ancient plants, whose noxious influence once drugged our fathers into deadly slumbers. They are compounding again the cup of Rome's ancient sorcery, and saying:

"Here is the universal medicine! the great Catholic remedy." I see them pouring their Belladonna, Monkshood, and deadly Henbane, into the great pot for ever simmering on the Papal hearth. Think you the nations are to be healed by this accursed amalgam? Will not the end be as in the days of the prophets, when one gathered wild gourds, and they cried out, "There is death in the pot"? Ay, indeed, so it will be, even though Oxford and Canterbury set their seal upon the patent medicine. Come, ye brave sons of protesting fathers! Come and overturn this witches' caldron, and spiff it back into the hell for which alone it is fit. Pity that even old Tiber's tawny flood should be poisoned with it, or bear its deadly mixture to that sea across which once sailed the apostolic barque. The wine of Rome's abominations is now imported into this island, and distributed in a thousand towns and villages by your own national clergy, and all classes and conditions of men are being made drank therewith. Ye lovers of your race, and of your God, stop the traffic, and proclaim around the Popish caldron, "There is no healing there." No healing plants ever grew upon the Seven Hills of Rome, nor are the roots improved in virtue if transplanted to Canterbury, or the city on the Isis. There is one divine remedy, and only one. It is no mixture. Receive ye it and live—"With his stripes we are healed." No sprinkling can wash out sin, no confirmation can confer grace, no masses can propitiate God. Your hope must be in Jesus, Jesus smitten, Jesus bruised, Jesus slain, Jesus the Substitute for sinners. Whosoever believes in him is healed, but all other hopes are a lie from top to bottom. Of sacramentarianism, I will say that its Alpha is a lie, and its Omega is a lie, it is false as the devil who devised it; but Christ, and only Christ, is the true Physician of souls, and his stripes the only remedy. Oh, for a trumpet to sound this through every town of England! through every city of Europe! Oh, to preach this in the Colosseum! or better still, from the pulpit of St. Peter's!—"With his stripes we are healed." Away, away ye deceivers, with your mixtures and compounds: away ye proud sons of men with your boastings of what ye feel, and think, and do, and what ye intend and tow. "With his stripes we are healed." A crucified Saviour is the sole and only hope of a sinful world.

731. Safety in Christ

I read a story, the other day, of some Russians crossing wide plains studded over here and there with forests. The villages were ten or a dozen miles from each other, and the wolves were out, and the horses were rushing forward madly, and the travellers could hear the baying of the wolves behind them; and though the horses tore along with all speed, yet the wolves were fast behind, and they only escaped, as we say, "by the skin of their teeth," managing just to get inside some hut that stood in the road, and to shut-to the door. Then they could hear the wolves leap on the roof; they could hear them dash against the sides of the hut; they could hear them gnawing at the door, and howling, and making all sorts of dismal noises; but the travellers were safe, because they had entered by the door, and the door was shut. Now, when a man gets in Christ, he can hear, as it were, the devils howling like wolves, all fierce and hungry for him; and his own sins, like wolves, are seeking to drag him down to destruction. But he has got in to Christ, and that is such a shelter that all the devils in the world, if they were to come at once, could not start a single beam of that eternal refuge: it must stand fast, though earth and heaven should pass away.

732. Safety of the Believer at all Times

Beneath the wings of the Almighty God night with its pestilence cannot smite the saints, and day with its cares cannot destroy them; youth with its passions shall be safely passed; middle age with its whirl of business shall be navigated in safety; old age with its infirmities shall become the land of Beulah; death's gloomy vale shall be lit up with the coming splendour; the actual moment of departure, the last and solemn article shall be the passing over of a river dry-shod. "When thou passest through the waters, I will be with thee; and through the rivers, they shall not overflow thee: when thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee, saith the Lord." "They shall never perish."

733. Saints, Solitary

Think of God working in the solitary things, for the grass does not merely grow around our populous cities, and where men take care of it, but up there on the side of the bleak Alp, where no traveller has ever passed. Where only the eye of the wild bird has beheld their lonely verdure, the moss and the grass come to perfection, and display all their beauty, for God's works are fair to other eyes than those of mortals. And you, solitary child of God, dwelling far away from any friend, unknown and obscure, in a remote hamlet; or you in the midst of London, hiding away in your little garret, unknown to fame, and forsaken by friendship, you are not forgotten by the love of heaven. He maketh the grass to grow all alone, and shall not he make you flourish in loneliness? He can bring forth your graces, and educate you for the skies, in solitude and neglect.

734. Saints, Love-sickness of the

There are two love-sicknesses in Solomon's Song. The one is when the spouse longs for the presence of her Lord, and the second is when she gets that presence; he is so glorious to her, that she is ready to die with excess of joy, and she exclaims, "Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples: for I am sick of love." If you cannot get the second, recollect that the first is the clear way to it. Resolve in your heart, my brother and sister, that you never will be happy till you win the face of Christ. Settle it in your soul that there shall be no end to your cries and tears till you can say with all your heart, "My Beloved is near me; I can speak to him; I am in the enjoyment of his love." If you can be content without it, you shall go without it, but if you must have it, you shall have it. If your hunger will break through stone walls to reach your Lord, no stone walls shall keep him from you. If you are insatiable after Christ, he will feed you with himself. If you bid good-bye to all the dainties of the world, and all its sweet draughts and delicacies, and must have Christ, and Christ alone, then no hungering soul shall long be kept without him. He must come to you. There are cords that draw him to you at this hour, His love draws you to him, but your love draws him close to you. Be not afraid, your soul shall be like the chariots of Amminadib; perhaps even this morning, and you shall go on your way rejoicing.

735. Saints, Manifestation of the When a Roman general came home from the wars he entered Rome by stealth, and slept at night, and tarried by day, perhaps for a week or two, among his friends. He went through the streets, and people whispered, "That is the general, the valiant one," but he was not publicly acknowledged. But on a certain set day, the gates were thrown wide open, and the general, victorious from the wars in Africa or Asia, with his snow-white horses bearing the trophies of his many battles, rode through the streets, which were strewn with roses, while the music sounded, and the multitudes, with glad acclaim, accompanied him to the Capitol. That was his triumphant entry. Those in heaven have, as it were, stolen there. They are blessed, but they have not had their public entrance. They are waiting till their Lord shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the trump of the archangel, and the voice of God; then shall their bodies rise, then shall the world be judged; then shall the righteous be divided from the wicked; and then, up-streaming in marvellous procession, leading captivity captive for the last time, the Prince at their head, the whole of the blood-washed host, wearing their white robes, and bearing their palms of victory, shall march up to their crowns and to their thrones, to reign for ever and ever! After this consummation the believing heart is panting, groaning, and sighing.

736. Saints' Victory over Sin

Some men are great on account of their victories. How they crowd the streets when a Cæsar or a Napoleon returns in triumph from the slaughter of his fellow creatures! Io Triumphe! Sound the trumpets! Beat the drums! Hang out the garlands! Gather, ye crowds! Here comes the red-handed man, crimson with the blood of his fellows! What glory is this? Bah! It smells of the butcher's shambles. The glory of a child of God is the glory which Christ has given him of having slain his sins, of having trampled under foot his corruptions, the glory of having fought with devils and overcome them, having wrestled with principalities and powers, and laid them in the dust. This is true glory. And what glory shall that be which awaits every true believer when up the everlasting hills he shall ascend, to be welcomed where his Master sits, welcomed with the selfsame words of gratulation, "Well done!"

737. Saints, Satan's Attack upon

If you are more generous than other saints, if you live nearer to God than others, as the birds peck most at the ripest fruit, so may you expect Satan to be most busy against you. Who cares to contend for a province covered with stones and barren rocks, and ice-bound by frozen seas? But in all time there is sure to be a contention after the fat valleys, where the wheat-sheaves are plenteous, and where the husbandman's toil is well requited, and thus, for you who honour God most, Satan will struggle very sternly. He wants to pluck God's jewels from his crown, if he can, and take the Redeemer's precious stones even from the breastplate itself. He considers, then, God's people; viewing them as hindrances to his reign, he contrives methods by which he may remove them out of his way, or turn them to his own account. Darkness would cover the earth if he could blow out the lights; there would be no fruit to shake like Lebanon, if he could destroy that handful of corn upon the top of the mountains; hence his perpetual consideration is to make the faithful fail from among men.

738. Salvation before Calling In the olden times of imprisonment for debt, it would have been quite correct for you to step into the cell of a debtor, and say to him, I have freed you, if you had paid his debts and obtained an order for his discharge. Well, but he is still in prison. Yes; but you really liberated him as soon as you paid his debts. It is true he was still in prison, but he was not legally there, and no sooner did he know that the debt was paid, and that receipt was pleaded before proper authorities, than the man obtained his liberty. So the Lord Jesus Christ paid the debts of his people before they knew anything about it. Did he not pay them on the cross more than eighteen hundred years ago to the utmost penny? and is not this the reason why, as soon as he meets with us in a way of grace, he cries, "I have saved thee; lay hold on eternal life." We are, then, virtually, though not actually, saved before we are called.

739. Salvation, Certainty of

It is not at all unusual for God to make a complete shipwreck of that vessel in which his people sail, although he fulfils his promise, that not a hair of their heads shall perish. I should not wonder if he would cause two seas to meet around your barque, so that there should not be more than a few boards and broken pieces of the ship left to you, but oh! if you have faith in Christ, he will certainly bring you safe to shore.

740. Salvation, Full

Though a man had damned himself a thousand times with the blackest filth that ever came from hell, yet, if he believes in Jesus, God must be true to his solemn promise: it is not possible that the sin of man could justify God in flying from his promise or denying his own self. He declares full pardon to every soul that trusteth in the Lord Jesus: I pray you slander not my Lord and Master by saying that this or that could make him take his words back, or break his covenant in Christ Jesus.

741. Salvation, Great When Christ opened the holy of holies, he did not make a little slit therein, but the veil of the temple was rent in twain from the top to the bottom, so that the hugest sinner that ever lived might come through it to the blood-besprinkled mercy-seat.

742. Salvation, Possession of, making Truth precious

It has been very well observed that a man is not often a very thorough democrat after he gets a little money in the savings-bank. Well, I think it is very likely that when a man gets a little stake in his country, he begins to be, just to the merest extent, conservative. As soon as ever a man gets a stake in Christianity, and feels that he has got salvation in Jesus Christ, he gets to be very, very conservative of the old fashioned truth. He cannot give up the Bible then, because it is a broad land of wealth to him. He cannot give up Christ, for he is his Saviour, his salvation. He cannot give up a single promise, because that promise is so dear to his own soul.

743. Salvation, Security of

If you can so pervert your imaginations, and make your judgments play the acrobat as to conceive a justified soul damned, then I ask you what greater curse could the infernal fiend himself confer upon a mortal than this so-called justification. A spirit pronounced just, and then sent down to hell, accursed of God, accursed by the same lips that justified it,—blasphemous thought! To lie in those flames, and to remember that I once had the righteousness of Christ, that I once was washed in his precious blood—oh, impossible! It shall not, must not, cannot be, while the Deity is immutable, and while the strong hand of God will not suffer the righteousness of Christ thus to be covered with disgrace. He did not begin to build, and then fail to finish. "Whom he justified, them he also glorified." Where a man has done the greater, he does not fail to do the less. Now, it is a greater thing to justify a man than it is to glorify him. I mean this—that justification cost the Saviour's life, and the Saviour's death; but to glorify a man who is already justified costs God nothing. The expense is already laid out in the justification of the soul; and to take a man to heaven is only to take him to a prepared place, for which he is himself prepared. Shall he do the greater, and then neglect the less?" He that spared not his own Son, but freely delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?"

744. Salvation, Simplicity of the Way of Does is not seem to you to be inconsistent with the character of the God of nature that he should have instituted a plan of salvation so singularly complicated and theatrical as that which is now-a-days taught us by priests? Nature is simple: her grandeur lies in her simplicity. If you walk in the fields of our own happy land, or climb the lofty ranges of the Alps, you are delighted with the beautiful simplicity of nature, in which there is an utter absence of everything meretricious, showy, and theatrical. Everything has a practical design, and even the colours of the flowers, which are not without intent and design, enable the plant to drink in certain rays of light which shall best satisfy its need. There is nothing in nature for mere display; but you step inside a place of worship dedicated to salvation by ceremonies, and I am persuaded that your taste will be outraged, if that taste has been formed upon the model of nature. Frequently, on the Continent, I turned with loathing from gaudily decorated churches, daubed with paint, smothered with gilt, and bedizened with pictures, dolls, and all sorts of baby prettinesses; I turned aside from them, muttering, "If your God accepts such rubbish as this he is no God to me; the God of yon rolling cloud and crashing thunder, yon foaming billow and towering rock, is the God whom I adore. Too sublime, too noble, too great-minded to take delight in your genuflections, and stage-play devotions." When I beheld processions with banners, and crosses, and smoking censers, and saw men who claimed to be sent of God, and yet dress themselves like Tom fools, I did not care for their God, but reckoned that he was some heathenish idol whom I counted it my glory as a man to scoff at and to despise. Do not fall into the notion that the God of nature is different from the God of grace. He who wrote the book of nature wrote the book of revelation, and writes the book of experience within the human heart. Do not therefore choose a way of salvation utterly at variance with the divine character.

745. Salvation Secured for all Believers In a few hours, dear friends, I shall be crossing the sea, and I will suppose that there shall be a good stiff wind, and that the vessel may be driven out of her course, and be in danger. As I walk the deck, I see a poor girl on board; she is very weak and ill, quite a contrast to that fine strong, burly passenger who is standing beside her, apparently enjoying the salt spray and the rough wind. Now suppose a storm should come on, which of these two is the more safe? Well, I cannot see any difference, because if the ship goes to the bottom, they will both go, and if the ship gets to the other side of the channel they will both land in security. The safety is equal when the thing upon which it depends is the same. So, if the weakest Christian is in the boat of salvation—that is if he trusts Christ—he is as safe as the strongest Christian; because if Christ failed the weak one, he would fail the strong one too. Why, if the least Christian who believes in Jesus does not get to heaven, then Peter himself will not get to heaven. I am sure of it, that if the smallest star which Christ ever kindled does not blaze in eternity, neither will the brightest star. If you who have given yourselves to Jesus, should any of you be cast away, this would prove that Jesus is not able to save, and then all of us must be cast away too. Oh, yes! "we believe that we shall be saved, even as they."

746. Salvation, the Great Need

Prosperity in this world, earn if you can do so fairly, but "what shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?" A golden coffin will be a poor compensation for a damned soul. To be cast away from God's presence, can that misery be assuaged by mountains of treasure? Can the bitterness of the second death be sweetened by the thought that the wretch was once a millionaire, and that his wealth could affect the politics of nations? No, there is nothing in health or wealth comparable to salvation. Nor can honour and reputation bear a comparison therewith. Truly they are but baubles, and yet for all that they have a strange fascination for the sons of men. Oh, sirs, if every harpstring in the world should resound your glories, and every trumpet should proclaim your fame, what would it matter if a louder voice should say, "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels?" Salvation! salvation! SALVATION! Nothing on earth can match it, for the merchandise of it is better than silver, and the gain thereof than fine gold. The possession of the whole universe would be no equivalent to a lost soul for the awful damage it has sustained and must sustain for ever. Pile up the worlds, and let them fill the balance: ay, bring as many worlds as there are stars, and heap up the scale on the one side; then in this other scale place a single soul endowed with immortality, and it outweighs the whole.

747. Salvation, the Trade of Christ

If I saw the doctor's brougham driving along at a great rate through the streets, I should be sure that he was not coming to my house, for I do not require him; but if I had to guess where he was going, I should conclude that he was hastening to some sick or dying person. The Lord Jesus Christ is the Physician of souls. The more sick thou art, the more room is there for the physician's art. When a man sets up in a trade, he likes to find a locality where his articles are wanted, and there he opens his shop. What if I say it is my Master's trade to save sinners? What if I say it is the only business and calling that he undertook, to become a Saviour of lost and ruined souls? Then he can drive a brisk trade in thy heart, and I believe that he will open shop there, and enrich himself with thy praise and thy love by saving thee.

748. Salvation through Christ Alone

Hear, dear friend, your true position. It is the case of a soldier on the battle field, wounded, bleeding, life oozing away from him, he is perishing, but he is sufficiently sensible to know it and to call for help. The surgeon is on the field within hearing, the sufferer pleads for relief with many cries and entreaties. So far well; but I pray you remember that crying and weeping will not of themselves heal the sick man—the surgeon must actually come and bind up his wounds; and if he refuses to receive him, he may cry as he wills, but he will bleed to death. So remember that your prayers and seekings of themselves cannot save you, Jesus must come to you, and it is madness on your part to refuse him by your unbelief.

749. Salvation through Clinging to Christ A certain woman thought that there was power in the hem of Jesus' garment to make her whole. She was mistaken in imagining that there was a healing efficacy in his dress, but since it was a mistake of faith, and reflected honour upon Christ, the Lord made it true to her; he made virtue go out of himself even into the skirts of his garments for her sake. And so, though we may err here and err there in reference to our Lord, yet, if our soul does but cling to him like a child to its mother, knowing little of its mother except that its mother loves it, and that it is dependent upon her, that clinging will be saving.

750. Salvation, Unpurchasable

Suppose you were to empty Potosi of its silver, and Golconda should be drained of its diamonds; nay, count up all the treasures that couch beneath the surface of the earth: if you brought them all, what would they be to God? And if you could pile up gold reaching from the nethermost parts of the earth to the highest heavens, what would the mass be to him? How could all this enrich his coffers, or buy your salvation? Can he be affected by anything you do to augment the sum of his happiness, or to increase the glory of his kingdom? If he were hungry, he would not tell you. "The cattle on ten thousand hills," saith he, "are mine." Your goodness may please your fellow creatures, and your charity may make them grateful, but will God owe anything to you for your alms, or be beholden to you for your influence? Preposterous questions! When you have done all, what will you be but a poor, unworthy, unprofitable servant? You will not have done what you ought, much less will there be any balance in your favour to make atonement for sin, or to purchase for you an inheritance in the realms of light.

751. Salvation of Grace

Every good thing that is in a Christian, not merely begins, but progresses and is consummated by the fostering grace of God, through Jesus Christ. If my finger were on the golden latch of Paradise, and my foot were on its jasper threshold, I should not take the last step so as to enter heaven unless the grace which brought me so far should enable me fully and fairly to complete my pilgrimage. Salvation is God's work, not man's. This is the theology which Jonah learned in the great fish college, in the university of the great deep, to which college it would be a good thing if many of our divines in these days could be sent, for human learning often puffeth up with the idea of human sufficiency; but he that is schooled and disciplined in the college of a deep experience, and made to know the vileness of his own heart, as he peers into its chambers of imagery, will confess that from first to last salvation is not of him that willeth, nor of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy.

752. Salvation of Hearers, the Preacher's desire

I will make no terms with God if you will but accept Christ. I am somewhat of the mind of a dear little girl who is now dying, if she has not already departed. She sent a little note in pencil to her minister, and it was delivered at the prayer-meeting. "A little believer in Christ, nine years of age, asks the prayers of the people for her father, for he is an unbeliever." She was visited by her minister, and she said to him, "Oh, sir, I have asked father to come and hear you preach; I thought he might get saved, but he mocks at it, and will not come; but, sir, he must hear you preach one day, and that is when I shall be buried, for I shall soon be with Jesus. Oh, sir! when he stands at the grave do be sure to tell him about the love of Christ, and say that I asked you to do so, for perhaps when I am dead that might help to break his heart." Oh, yes! if anything would break your hearts, that were a mercy if it happened. If the preacher himself were dead, if his interment in the grave could bring you to the Saviour, it were a cheap price to pay. Only may God save you; may the Holy Ghost renew you; may the Saviour wash you in his precious blood; and I shall be well content.

753. Sanctification, Emblem of

Autumn has a more sober aspect, but still it rivals the glory of spring. Ripe fruit has its own peculiar beauty. As the fruit ripens, the sun tints it with surpassing loveliness, and the colours deepen till the beauty of the fruit is equal to the beauty of the blossom, and in some respects is superior What a delicacy of bloom there is upon the grape, the peach, the plum, when they have attained perfection! Nature far excels art, and all the attempts of the modeller in wax cannot reach the marvellous blendings of colour, the matchless tints of the ripe fruit, worthy of Eden before the fall. It is another sort of beauty altogether from that of the blossom, yielding to the eye of the husbandman, who has the care of the garden, a fairer sight by far. The perfumed bloom yields in value to the golden apple, even as promise is surpassed by fulfilment. The blossom is painted by the pencil of hope, but the fruit is dyed in the hue of enjoyment. There is in ripe Christians the beauty of realised sanctification, which the word of God knows by the name of "the beauty of holiness." This consecration to God, this setting apart for his service, this watchful avoidance of evil, this careful walking in integrity, this dwelling near to God, this being made like unto Christ—in a word, this beauty of holiness is one of the surest emblems of maturity in grace. You have no ripe fruit if you are not holy, if still your passions are unsubdued, if still you are carried about by every wind of temptation. If still, "Lo here, and lo there," will attract you to the right hand and to the left, you have not reached to anything like maturity; perhaps you are not even fruit unto God at all. But where holiness is perfected in the fear of God, and the Christian is at least striving after perfect holiness, and aiming to be conformed to the image of Christ, one of the marks of the ripe fruit is plainly present.

754. Satan, Limit of his Power The fair and lovely dove may fall into the mire, but the mire has not any dominion over her, for she rises up as quickly as she can, and away she flies and seeks to cleanse herself at some crystal fount. As for the duck, put that into the mire, and the mire hath dominion over its nature. So the believer may fall into sin that he hates, and defile his garments with uncleanness that he loathes. Let a sheep tumble into a ditch, and it scrambles out again, but let the swine go there, and it rolls in it, for the mire has dominion over its nature. There is nothing here to excuse you from watchfulness, no reason shown nor any pledge that sin may not sometimes terribly overcome you. It may carry the war right into the province of your spirit, and ravage it, and the whole of your nature may for awhile seem to be subdued, except the heart. Happily a limit is prescribed. Though the enemy may seem to conquer the territory of your manhood, yet it cannot establish a kingdom there, for it shall be driven out again in due time, and that before long. When the enemy cometh in as a flood, the Spirit of God will lift up the standard against him, and the enemy shall yet be worsted in the combat.

755. Satan, Service of

L am often in my soul amazed at what men will do for that black master, the devil. Why, sirs, the devil will sometimes summon men to one of his conventicles at the street corner, where the gas is flaming, and they will cheerfully obey the summons. They will meet in such places with companions, rude, boisterous, selfish, vulgar, and everything else that is undesirable, and call them jolly good fellows. If the devil would pick out some fine brave spirits for them to meet, men of wit and genius, and information, one would not wonder so much at the readiness with which the dupes assemble; but the congregations of Satan are usually made up of men and women of the lowest and most degraded kind, and these people know it; but when they are beckoned off to the assembly of the scorners, they go with the greatest readiness. And what is done at this gathering of the foolish? Well, they commune together in stupidities at which it must be hard to laugh, and meanwhile they pass round the cup of liquid fire, out of which they cheerfully drink, and drink, and drink again, though each successive goblet is filled with deeper damnation. These willing slaves drink at their master's bidding, though the cup makes their brain reel, sets their heart on flame, and makes them unable to keep their feet. Yes, and when he still cries, "Drink, yea, drink abundantly," these faithful servants swallow down the poison till they lie down like logs, or roar like demons. They will keep the death-cup to their lips till delirium tremens comes upon them, and possesses them as with hell itself. Thousands obediently render homage unto Satan by drinking away their lives, and ruining their souls. How much further they go in serving their master than we do in following ours! Into hell itself they follow their accursed leader. They pay him his revenues without arrears, and yet his taxes are heavy, and his exactions are most oppressive.

756. Satan, Subtlety of

Satan never brushes the feathers of his birds the wrong way; he generally deals with us according to our tastes and likings. He flavours his bait to his fish.

757. Satisfaction, not in the World The soul that has once learned to swim in the river of Christ will, when his presence is withdrawn, be like a fish laid by the fisherman on the sandy shore, it begins to palpitate in dire distress, and ere long it will die, if not again restored to its vital element. You cannot get the flavour of the bread of heaven in your mouth, and afterwards contentedly feed on ashes. He who has never tasted anything but the brown, gritty cakes of the world, may be very well satisfied with them; but he who has once tasted the pure white bread of heaven can never be content with the old diet. It spoils a man for satisfaction with this world to have had heart-ravishing dealings with the world to come. I mean not that it spoils him for practical activity in it, for the heavenly life is the truest life even for earth, but it spoils him for the sinful pleasures of this world; it prevents his feeding his soul upon anything save the Lord Jesus Christ's sweet love. Jesus is the chief ingredient of all his joy, and he finds that no other enjoyment beneath the sky is worth a moment's comparison with the King's wines on the lees well refined.

758. Saved, Almost

You are almost saved; you are awakened, you are aroused, you have many good desires, but a man who is only almost saved will be altogether damned. There was a householder who almost bolted his door at night, but the thief came in; a prisoner was condemned to be hanged, and was almost pardoned, but he hung on the gallows: a ship was almost saved from shipwreck, but she went to the bottom with all hands on board; a fire was almost extinguished, but it consumed a city; a man almost decided remains to perish in the flames of hell. So is it with you: except you believe, all these things which you possess of good desire and emotion shall be of no service to you at all, for "he that believeth not shall be damned."

759. Savior, Name of, a Comfort for Sinners

I am a sinner lost and ruined, but I rejoice, for Jesus has come to seek and to save that which was lost. My sins trouble me, but he shall save his people from their sins. Satan annoys me, but he has come to destroy the works of the devil. He is not a nominal, but a real Saviour. We know captains and colonels who have no troops, and never saw fighting, but not so the Captain of our salvation; he brings many sons unto glory. If a man is called a builder, we expect him to build; if a merchant, we expect him to trade; and as Jesus is a Saviour, he will carry on his sacred business, he will save multitudes. Why, surely there is comfortable hope here. Do you not see the dawning in the name of Saviour? Surely, if he comes to save, and you need saving, there is a blessed suitability in you for one another. A prisoner at the bar is glad to meet one who is by profession an advocate; a ship out of its track welcomes a pilot; a traveller lost on the moors is delighted if he meets one who is by trade a guide; and so a sinner should rejoice at the bare mention of a Saviour.

760. Saying and Doing

We meet in common life with persons who say that they are rich, but this does not make them so. They apply for credit, and say that they are wealthy, when they are worth nothing. Companies will ask for your money with which they may speculate, and they say that they are sound, but they are oftentimes found to be rotten; though some of them make a very fair show in the prospectus, the result appears very foul in the winding-up of the association. Persons have been known to say that they were of distinguished rank, but when they have had to prove their title before the House of Lords, oftentimes has it been discovered that they have made a mistake. Lunatics in Bethlehem Hospital have been found by scores to say that they were kings or queens. In the old houses, where madmen were confined, it often happened that some poor creature twisted a crown of straw, put it on his head, and said that he was a monarch. But that did not make him so. No armies arose at his bidding; no fleets crossed the ocean to do his will; no tribute was brought to his feet; he remained a poor pauper madman still, though he said that he was a king. Many a time have you found the difference, in your commercial transactions, between blank saying and positive truth. A man has said that he would meet that bill, or that he would discharge that debt; he has said that the rent should be paid when it was due; he has said a thousand things—and you have found out that it was easy enough for him to say, but it was not quite so easy for you to obtain the doing of it. And when the engagement has been turned to writing, registered, and made as fast as black and white can make it, you have not found it thoroughly reliable, for to say by subscribing a contract or covenant does not always make it certain that a man will fulfil it; to say is not necessarily a pledge of good faith, or a warrant against perfidy. Rest assured, then, that if in these temporal matters to say is not the same thing as to be or to do, neither is it so in spiritual things. A minister may say that he is sent of God, and yet be a wolf in sheep's clothing. A man may say that he unites himself to the church of God, but he may be no better than a hypocrite and an alien, who has no part in her fellowship. We may say that we pray, and yet never a prayer may come from our hearts. We may say to our fellow men that we are Christians, and yet we may never have been born again—never have obtained the precious faith of God's elect—never have been washed in the blood of Jesus Christ. And, sirs, as you would not be satisfied with merely saying that you are rich; as you want the title-deeds of the broad acres; as you want to hear the coins chink in your box; as you want the real thing, and not the mere saying of it—so, I pray you, be not put off with the mere profession of religion. Be not content with a bare assertion, or think that is enough; but seek to have your own profession verified by the witness of heaven, as well as by that of your own conscience.

761. Scripture, Feast of

Ye may suck as ye will, but ye shall never have too much out of the breast of Scripture. Here you can come and drop your bucket every morning and night, but you shall never draw too much from this well, whose cool depths supply an even crystal stream. Oh, come to the banquet, ye hungry ones, and never think to rise from that table, but sit there till your souls shall be taken away to a table yet more richly furnished. Feast on still, with appetites whose edges are ever keen.

762. Scripture, Neglect of

I was assured the other day by a good man, with a great deal of alarm, that all England was going over to Popery. I told him I did not know what kind of God he worshipped, but my God was a good deal bigger than the devil, and did not intend to let the devil have his way after all, and that I was not half as much afraid of the Pope at Rome as of the Ritualists at home. But mark it, there is some truth in these fears. There will be a going over to one form of error or another, unless there be in the Christian church a more honest, industrious, and general reading of the Holy Scripture. What if I were to say most of you church members do not read your Bibles, should I be slandering you? You hear on the Sabbath day a chapter read, and you perhaps read a passage at family prayer, but a very large number never read the Bible privately for themselves, they take their religion out of the monthly magazine, or accept it from the minister's lips. Oh, for the Berean spirit back again, to search the Scriptures whether these things be so. I would like to see a huge pile of all the books, good and bad that were ever written, prayer-books, and sermons, and hymn-books, and all, smoking like Sodom of old, if the reading of those books keeps you away from the reading of the Bible; for a ton weight of human literature is not worth an ounce of Scripture; one single drop of the essential tincture of the word of God is better than a sea full of our commentings and sermonisings, and the like.

763. Scripture, Pointing to Christ

Some time ago, when in Italy, at a town on the Italian side of the Alps, I saw one Sunday afternoon, in a quiet walk alone, a sight which struck me very much, and which remains fixed upon my memory. There was outside the town a mountain, all the way up the sides of which were different representations of the progress of our Lord, from the garden where Judas betrayed him to the place of his resurrection. The figures were as large as life, carved in either stone or wood, and painted to imitate nature. When I got to the very summit of the hill, there was a church. There was no one in it, and I pushed open the door and went in. All was still. It was a large building, and all around it were images of the prophets and the apostles. There stood Isaiah, and Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, and all the rest—one knew the usual portraits of them; and up in the dome, at the very top of the church, was a large and striking image of the Saviour. Now, what struck me about the church was this—that the images of those prophets and apostles who stood there had their fingers all pointed upwards, so that when I went in I could not help looking up to the top to see what they were pointing at. All round the church there were the words, in Latin, "Moses and the prophets spake concerning him: "and there stood Moses and the prophets carved in stone, and all pointing to him.

Isaiah had a little scroll in his hand, on which was written, "The Lord hath made to meet on him the iniquity of us all." Jeremiah had a scroll in his hand, on which was written, "Behold, and see if there was ever sorrow like unto my sorrow, which was done unto me." I think the church just represented the truth in that case. It is even so. All the prophets stand as a complete circle of distinct testifiers, and, with uplifted fingers, they all concur with John the Baptist when he said, "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sins of the world." They all point to Christ. If you read the life of Christ, and then read what they said of him, you will be persuaded that this is he which was to come.

764. Scripture, Purity of

I should like to see all the good books themselves burnt, as well as the bad books of Ephesus, if they keep men from reading Holy Scripture for themselves. Here is the well of purest gospel undefiled: it springs up in this precious volume with freshness and sweetness unequalled. We who write upon it, hand out that same sweet water to you in our own cups and goblets, but to some extent all our vessels are defiled. There is in the purest intellect some measure of error; and the living water which we hand out to the people must in some measure participate in our imperfection. Do not be content to drink from our pipkins and our chalices, but come and put your lips right down to where the living water, with all the self-sufficient fulness of the deeps eternal, comes welling up from the very heart of God.

765. Scripture, Suitability of, to All When you are on the dunghill, there sits Scripture, with dust and ashes on its head, weeping side by side with you, and not upbraiding like Job's miserable comforters. But suppose you come to the book with gleaming eyes of joy, you will hear it laugh; it will sing and play to you as with psaltery and harp; it will bring forth the high-sounding cymbals. Enter its goodly land in a happy state, and you shall go forth with joy and be led forth with peace, its mountains and its hills shall break before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. As in water the face is reflected, so in the living stream of revealed truth a man sees his own image.

766. Seashore, Christian Work at the Can we not do something for Jesus on the sands? If so, let us not miss such a happiness. What situation and surroundings can be better for earnest, loving conversation with our young friends concerning their souls' best interests? A few words about the sea of eternity and its great deeps, a sentence or two upon the broken shells and our frailty, upon the Rock of Ages and the sands of time, may never be forgotten, especially if they be but few, and those pleasant, solemn, and congruous with the occasion. A good book lent to a lounger may also prove a blessing. A handful of interesting pamphlets scattered discreetly may prove to be fruitful seed. Souls are to be caught by the seashore and in the boat: gospel fisherman, take your net with you.

767. Security, Carnal, Danger of My soul shudders at the thought of routine religion, formal service, dead devotion, mechanical godliness. What a mercy to reach the fresh springs, to feel a daily renewed youth, an anointing with fresh oil! For this I pine and pant. One gets driving on in the dark, as coachmen sometimes do when they are asleep on the box: dangerous work, this! I know that I am safe in Christ, but I could fain suffer anything rather than become habitually of a slumbering heart. Better smart under the long whip of affliction, or feel the stings of conscience, or even the darts of the devil, than lie down in carnal security's lap to be shorn of one's locks by the Philistines; yet I fear this has been my case.

768. Security of the Believer in Christ

How many Christians are like the miser who never feels sure about the safety of his money, even though he has locked up the iron safe, and secured the room in which he keeps it, and locked up the house, and bolted and barred every door! In the dead of night he thinks he hears a footstep, and tremblingly he goes down to inspect his strong room. Having searched the room, and tested all the iron bars in the window, and discovered no thief, he fears that the robber may have come and gone, and stolen his precious charge. So he opens the door of his iron safe, he looks and pries, he finds his bag of gold quite safe, and those deeds, those bonds, they are safe too. He puts them away, shuts the door, locks it, bolts and bars the room in which is the safe and all its contents; but even as he goes to bed, he fancies that a thief has just now broken in. So he scarcely ever enjoys sound, refreshing sleep. The safety of the Christian's treasure is of quite another sort. His soul is not under bolt and bar, or under lock and key of his own securing, but he has transferred his all to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, our Saviour—and such is his security that he enjoys the sleep of the beloved, calmly resting, for all is well.

769. Self-denial, a Christian Virtue

He that wears the herb heart's-ease in his bosom is richer than he that can wear diamonds upon his fingers, if those fingers be stained with guilt. It is comparatively easy to be correct and upright when these things pay, when we can by them secure the esteem of our fellow men, and that confidence which is as good as money to a man in business, because of the credit it brings with it. But it is quite another thing to do the right when it means to strip oneself of all, and to give up long-loved and cherished possessions, hopes, and prospects, both for ourselves and family. This is the hour of temptation, when Satan comes with his glory and wealth in one hand, and a suggestion of evil in the other, and bids us open our lap to receive them, reminding us that to deny him is to close with injury and loss to reputation, to our business, and to our loved families at home. How many have made the dread compact with the Prince of Darkness! They have gained the world but lost their soul. They have sold their birthright for a mess of pottage, and bartered heaven for hell; time has been taken and eternity rejected. The honour of men has been esteemed more than the praise of God; they have grasped the gold and it has been a millstone round their neck, and into the deepest depths of woe it has dragged them, lost! lost! lost for ever!

770. Self-righteous, Doom of

I think I see the King coming in his glory, and the last tremendous morning dawn. When the King sits on his glory-throne, where are the self-righteous? Where are they? I cannot see them. Where are they? Come, come, Pharisee, come and tell the Lord that thou didst fast twice in the week, and then wast not even as the Publican! There sits the Publican at the right hand of the Judge! Come and say that thou wast cleaner and more holy than he! But where is the wretch? Where is he? Come hither, ye proud and ostentatious ones, who said you had no need to be washed in blood; come and tell the Judge so; tell him he made a mistake; tell him that the Saviour was only wanted to be a make-weight and assistant to those who could help themselves! But where are they? Why, they were dressed so finely; can those poor, naked, shivering wretches be the gay, vaunting professors we used to know? Yes. Hear them as they cry to the rocks to fall on them, and the hills to cover them, to hide them from the presence of the great Judge whom in their lifetime they insulted by putting their poor merits in comparison with the boundless wealth and merit of his blood.

771. Self-sacrifice, Examples of When I read of some of the saints giving up all that they have, crossing the sea, penetrating into barbarous regions, bearing their lives in their hands, sacrificing comforts, and living day by day on the verge of death, amid fever and wild beasts, and all that they might honour Christ, I am utterly ashamed. What are we, my brethren! Unto what shall we liken ourselves? Like a Colossus such men bestride their age, while we, base things, hide our dishonourable heads for shame at our spiritual littleness. The love of Christ to us is like that ancient furnace which was heated seven times hotter, while our love is like a solitary spark which wonders within itself that it is yet alive. May the Holy Spirit change this, and give us yet to glow and burn with sacred fire, like the bush in Horeb when it was aglow with deity.

772. Self-sacrifice, our Duty

Men in business may work as many hours as they like, and as hard as they will, to get money, and very seldom does any sagacious, prudent Mentor shake his head and tell the young merchant that he is laying out his strength too recklessly, and devoting his energies too vigorously, in getting gain or acquiring a fortune. Oh, no! they would rather tell him to spread all his canvas and ply every sinew, especially when wind and tide are in his favour. But the minister of God, the servant of Christ, often has that judicious advice tendered to him, "Do thyself no harm; be sure and not work too hard." "It was never intended," they say, "that anyone should risk his health, consume his spirits, or deny himself innocent recreation, with an enthusiasm that far exceeds the line of duty," as if there were such a line, or it were possible to define it. Ah! well, if the love of his Master be in him, as a constraining power, then kindling with the noble passion, and labouring with a fiery zeal, he will resent such expostulations as Christ did that of Peter, when, replying to his pitiful rebuke, "Pity thyself, Lord"—he said, "Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men." We are bound to sacrifice ourselves, yielding up the members of our bodies as instruments of righteousness unto God, and devoting the faculties of our renewed minds, that we may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect will of God.

773. Sensitiveness of the Believer The sensitive plant, as soon as it is touched, begins to fold up its leaves; touch it again, and the little branchlets droop, until at last it stands like the bare poles of a vessel, all its sail of leaf is furled, and it seems as if it would, if it could, shrink into nothing to avoid your hand. So should you be, so should I be, tender to the touch of sin, so as to say with the psalmist, "Horror hath taken hold upon me because of the wicked that forsake thy law."

774. Separation from Christ Impossible

Even the diamond can be dissolved; bring but sufficient heat to bear upon it, focus upon it the full rays of the sun, and the sparkling crystal dissolves into a little gas; but though men have tried to focus all the heat of persecution upon the Christian, they have never been able to separate him from the love of Christ; and though earth and hell have stirred up their malice, and the furnace has been heated seven times hotter, and the child of God has been tossed into it, and apparently deserted to the fury of his enemies, yet never in a single case has the precious gem of Christ Jesus in the heart been destroyed, nor the believer's interest in it; for Jesus and his servants have lived together, according to the glorious promise, "Because I live, ye shall live also."

775. Sermons intended to Reveal Jesus

Many persons in hearing a sermon are like children looking at a cornfield—it is full of yellow garlic, or perhaps of scarlet poppies, and they cry ""What a lovely field;" but the farmer thinks not so, he is looking for the wheat. Many a hearer watches for pretty speeches and flowery metaphors, and cries, "How well he puts it! What a well-turned sentence! How sweetly he quotes poetry!" and so on. Bah! Is that what you come to God's house for? O fools and slow of heart, is this your end in hearing the life-giving gospel of the bleeding Lamb? I assure you it is not this that we are aiming at in preaching to you. If you came to look after the good corn, you would care little for the gaudy poppies of a flaunting eloquence so much regarded by the men of these days. Come with the intent to find faith in Jesus; cry to God to make his word effectual to your salvation, and then hearing will be quite another business with you. Alas! I fear you will perish, let us preach as we may, while we are regarded by you as mere orators to be criticised, and not as witnesses whose testimony is to be weighed.

776. Sermons, Length of

Having learned by long experience that we exactly fill the twelve pages which our publishers allow for a penny sermon, when we speak for forty or forty-five minutes, we have come to adopt that period as our stint, and we usually find it neither too short nor too long. In occasional services, when we address persons who have no other opportunity of hearing us, we take more latitude, but our regulation allowance is three-quarters of an hour. A man who speaks well for that length of time has told his people quite enough, and from him who preaches badly they have in that time heard too much. Most divines can deliver all their best thoughts upon a text in forty minutes, and as it is a pity to bring forth "afterwards that which is worse," they had better bring the feast to an end. To men of prodigious jaw it may seem a hardship to be confined to time, but a broad charity will judge it to be better that one man should suffer than that a whole congregation should be tormented.

776. Sermons, Length of

Having learned by long experience that we exactly fill the twelve pages which our publishers allow for a penny sermon, when we speak for forty or forty-five minutes, we have come to adopt that period as our stint, and we usually find it neither too short nor too long. In occasional services, when we address persons who have no other opportunity of hearing us, we take more latitude, but our regulation allowance is three-quarters of an hour. A man who speaks well for that length of time has told his people quite enough, and from him who preaches badly they have in that time heard too much. Most divines can deliver all their best thoughts upon a text in forty minutes, and as it is a pity to bring forth "afterwards that which is worse," they had better bring the feast to an end. To men of prodigious jaw it may seem a hardship to be confined to time, but a broad charity will judge it to be better that one man should suffer than that a whole congregation should be tormented.

777. Sermons, Vagueness of

It was observed by a very excellent critic, not long ago, that if you were to hear thirteen lectures on astronomy or geology, you might get a pretty good idea of what the science was, and the theory of the person who gave the lectures; but that if you were to hear thirteen hundred sermons from some ministers, you would not know at all what they were preaching about, or what their doctrinal sentiments were. It ought not to be so. Is not this the reason why Puseyism spreads so, and all sorts of errors have such a foothold, because our people as a whole do not know what they believe? The doctrines of the gospel, if well received, give to a man something which he knows, and which he holds, and which will become dear to him, for which he would be prepared to die if the fires of persecution were again kindled.

778. Service of Christ, Call to the My king in his wars has lost his men, and the regiment wants making up. Who will come? I put the colours in my hat now, but I will not stand here and tempt you with lies about the ease of the service, for it is a hard service; yet I assure you we have a blessed Leader, a glorious conflict, and a grand reward. Who will come? Who will come to fill up gaps in the ranks? Who will be baptised for the dead, to stand in their place of Christian service, and take up the torch which they have dropped? I will put the question round, and I hope that many a heart will say, "Would God the Lord would have me. O that he would blot out my sins and receive me!" He delighteth in contrite hearts; he saveth such as be of a contrite spirit. He will have whom he will have, but the way to be enlisted is plain. "Oh," say you, "what must I give to be Christ's soldier?" To be the Queen's soldier you do not give anything; you receive a shilling. You take, to be a soldier of the Queen, and so to be Christ's soldier you must take Christ to be your all in all, holding out your empty hand and receiving of his blood and righteousness, to be your hope and your salvation.

779. Service for Christ, Perpetual The sun has been shining now a great many thousand years, but I have not heard that he intends retiring from the business yet. God has given to us fruitful seasons, and I have not heard that he intends to cease to bless our husbandry; every day we drink from the river of his mercy, and we have had no intimation yet that that river has ceased to flow, and that God intends to cut off the supplies. Why, then, should any one of us dream of staying his hand? What is a lifetime, at its utmost length, for the service of God? Suppose a man could spend seventy clear years in unflagging exertion in the service of his Master, what would it be after all? But now half our time must go in sleep, and in the necessary refreshment of the body; next, a very large proportion must be taken off for the business of the world, and then what is left? Why, we can only give our Master a few hours in the week, the most of us, and yet you talk about having served him so long. Dear Master, put thy hand upon our lips next time we would use such words, and never permit us to insult the sovereignty of thy dear love by making such an excuse for our sluggishness.

780. Service for Christ, Personal Our prayer should be, "Show me what thou wouldst have me to do"—have me to do in particular; not what is generally right, but what is particularly right for me to do. My servant might, perhaps, think it a very proper thing for her to arrange my papers for me in my study, but I should feel but a very slender amount of gratitude to her. If, however, she will have a cup of coffee ready for me early in the morning, when I have to go out to a distant country town to preach, I shall be much more likely to appreciate her services. So, some friends think, "How I could get on if I were in such and such a position, if I were made a deacon, if I were elevated to such a post." Go thy way, and work as thy Master would have thee. Thou wilt do better where he puts thee than thou wilt do where thou puttest thyself. Thou art no servant, indeed, at all, when thou dost pick and choose thy service, for the very spirit, the very essence of service consists in saying, "Not my will, but thine be done. I wait for orders from the throne: teach me what thou wouldst have me to do."

781. Service for Christ, to be Thorough

I see the Master at the table, and his servants place before him various meats, that he may eat and be satisfied. He tastes the cold meats, and he eats of the bread hot from the oven, but as for tepid drinks and half-baked cakes he puts them away with disgust. He will look on you who are cold, and are mourning your coldness, and he will give you heat; and he will look on you who are hot, and serve him with the best you have; but of the middle-man, the lukewarm, he saith, "I will spue thee out of my mouth." Jesus cannot bear lukewarm religion; he is sick of it. The religion of this present time is much of it rather nauseating to the Saviour than acceptable to him. If Baal be God, serve him; but if God be God, serve him truly. Let there be no mockery, but be true to the core. Be thorough; throw your soul into your religion. I charge you, young man, stand back awhile and count the cost; for if you wish to give to Christ a little, and to Baal a little, ye shall be cast away and utterly rejected—the Lord of heaven will have nought to do with you. Bless the Lord, then, all that is within me, for only such sincere and undivided homage can be accepted of the Lord.

782. Service of Christ to be Vigorous

See yonder man with a hammer in his hand—he touches the heads of the nails right daintily, as if he were afraid to hurt them. See another, how heartily he drives them in, and gives them yet another blow to clinch them and make all sure. Too many play at work, but the earnest man means work when he is working, and throws his heart into it. It is dreadful to see some men at their ordinary occupation; I cannot call it labour, one drop of their perspiration must be a very costly thing, as rare as a pearl of the first water. But others throw their soul into whatsoever they have to do, and not only strike while the iron is hot, but make the iron hot by striking. They do not wait for opportunities, but accept the present event as an opportunity. They work with both hands, and make the anvil ring again with the music of their hearty blows. Now, in the service of God we are bound to fulfil our work with the utmost degree of vigour. If the Lord's work is worth doing, it is worth doing well; and as the service of Christ is the highest in which any man can be engaged, the Master ought to be served with body, soul, and spirit.

783. Service for Christ, True Spirit of In the heroic days when Xerxes led his army into Greece, there was a remarkable contrast between the way in which the Persian soldiers and the Grecian warriors were urged to combat. The unwilling hosts of Persia were driven to the conflict by blows and stripes from their officers; they were either mercenaries or cowards, and they feared close contact with their opponents. They were driven to their duty as beasts are, with rods and goads. On the other side the armies of Greece were small, but each man was a patriot and a hero, and hence when they marched to the conflict it was with quick and joyous step, with a martial song upon their lips, and when they neared the foe, they rushed upon his ranks with an enthusiasm and a fury which nothing could withstand. No whips were needed for the Spartan men-at-arms—like high-mettled chargers they would have resented the touch thereof; they were drawn to battle by the cords of a man, and by the bands of patriotic love, they were bound to hold their posts at all hazards. "Spartans," would their leaders say, "your fathers disdained to number the Persians with the dogs of their flock, and will you be their slaves? Say ye, is it not better to die as freemen than to live as slaves? What if your foes be many, yet one lion can tear in pieces a far-reaching flock of sheep. Use well your weapons this day! Avenge your slaughtered sires, and fill the courts of Shushan with confusion and lamentation!" Such were the manly arguments which drew the Lacedæmonians and Athenians to the fight—not the whips so fit for beasts, nor the cords so suitable for cattle. This illustration may set forth the difference between the world's service of bondage, and the Christian's religion of love: the worldling is flogged to his duty under fear, and terror, and dread, but the Christian man is touched by motives which appeal to his highest nature; he is affected by motives so dignified as to be worthy of the sons of God; he is not driven as a beast, he is moved as a man.

784. Service, Extraordinary, Reward of

Whenever the Lord sets his servants to do extraordinary work he always gives them extraordinary strength; or if he puts them to unusual suffering he will give them unusual patience. When we enter upon war with some petty New Zealand chief, our troops expect to have their charges defrayed, and accordingly we pay them gold by thousands, as their expenses may require; but when an army marches against a grim monarch, in an unknown country, who has insulted the British flag, we pay, as we know to our cost, not by thousands, but by millions. There is a difference in the payment of an attack upon petty chieftains, and a war against an emperor. And so, my brethren, if God calls you to common and ordinary trials, he will pay the charges of your warfare by thousands, but if he commands you to an unusual struggle with some tremendous foe, he will discharge the liabilities of your war by millions, according to the riches of his grace in which he has abounded towards us through Christ Jesus.

785. Service of Heaven Unwearying

Joyous is the thought that Jesus rules over all redeemed spirits in heaven, for we hope to be there soon, and this shall be among our dearest joys that, without temptation, without infirmity, without weariness, we shall serve our Lord day and night in his temple. My brethren, of all the joys of heaven, next to that of being with Christ, one delights to think of serving Christ. Ah! how rapturous will be our song! how zealously we will praise him! how earnest shall be our service! If he should give us commissions to distant worlds, as perhaps he will; if he shall prepare us to become preachers of his truth to creatures in unknown orbs; if he shall call us through revolving ages to publish to new created myriads the wondrous grace of God in Christ, with what ardent pleasure will we accept the service! How constantly, how heartily will we tell out the story of our salvation by the precious blood of Jesus! O that we could serve him here as we wish! but we shall serve him there without fault or flaw. Oh, happy heaven, because Jesus hath the key of it, and reigns supreme, when shall we stand upon the sea of glass before his throne?

786. Shame to be Borne for Christ

It is not a fashionable thing to be a Christian. To be a Christian after the world's sort, I grant you; but after the sort of the New Testament it is not, and many say, "Well, it is not fashionable," and they bend to the fashion; and many in another shape do the like, for young men are laughed out of going to the house of God, and young women are decoyed from attending the means of grace by the laughter, and jeers, and jokes of their companions. Remember that they can laugh you into hell, but they can never laugh you out again, and though their jokes can shut-to the door, their jokes can never open that door again. Oh, is this all? Will you sell your souls to escape from fool's laughter? Then what a fool must you be yourself. What, are you so thin-skinned that you cannot bear to be questioned, or to be asked whether you are a follower of the Lord Jesus? Ah, sir, you shall have that thin skin of yours tormented well enough in the world to come, when shame, which you dread so much, shall be your everlasting portion! Oh, soul, why canst thou sell Christ for the applause of men? How canst thou give him up for the laughter of fools?

787. Sick Beds, Testimony of

There are sick beds which have been more fruitful in conversions than pulpits. I have known women confined to their chambers by the space of twenty years together, whose remarkable cheerfulness of spirit has been the talk of the entire district, and many there have been who have called to see poor Sarah in her cottage, knowing that she has scarce been a single day without distressing pain, and have heard her voice, and looked into that dear smiling face, and have learned the reality of godliness. The bedridden saint has been a power throughout all the district, and many have turned to God, saying, "What is this which enables the Christian to give thanks always to God?" Beloved, our crusty tempers and sour faces will never be evangelists. They may become messengers of Satan, but they will never become helpers of the gospel. To labour to make other people happy, is one of the grand things a Christian should always try to do.

788. Sight, Wonders of, a picture of Faith

It is a wonderful faculty, that of sight. Your eyes and mine take in at once the whole of this building, with all the assembled company. This eye will next, if it be placed at a point of vantage, take in the entire city of London with the whole of its populous streets. Give the eye but the opportunity, let the sun go down, and it will take in all the thousands of worlds that stud the brow of night. What is there which the eye cannot grasp, and mark you, not the eye of the great and mighty only, but of the poorest also? Yea, the little insignificant eye of the lark can take in as much, no doubt, as the big eye of the bullock; and the smallest eyes that God creates he enables to compass greatest things. A marvellous thing is that eye, darting its shafts everywhere, sending its rays around, and embracing all things. Now, just such a power is faith. What a faculty faith has for grasping everything, for it layeth hold upon the past, the present, and the future. It pierceth through most intricate things, and seeth God producing good out of all the tortuous circumstances of providence. And what is more, faith does what the eye cannot do—it sees the infinite; it beholds the invisible; it looks upon that which eye hath not seen, which ear hath not heard; it seeth beneath the veil that parts us from the land of terror, and, moved with fear, it makes us fly to the Saviour. Faith sees through the pearly gate, and, beholding the glory of the better land, it makes us fly to Jesus, who bears the keys of paradise at his girdle. Faith seeth—I know not how to describe fully what faith seeth. What is there she doth not behold? She seeth even God himself; for though in my finite conception I cannot grasp God, and my understanding can only perceive, as it were, his train and skirts, yet my faith, with awful comprehension, can take in the whole of God, and believe what she does not know, and accept what she cannot comprehend.

789. Sight and Faith

Walking by sight is just this—"I believe in myself;" whereas walking by faith is—"I believe in God." If I walk by sight I walk by myself; if I walk by faith, then there are two of us, and the second one—ah! how great, how glorious, how mighty is he—the Great All-in-all—God-all-sufficient! Sight goes a warfare at its own charges, and becomes a bankrupt, and is defeated. Faith goes a warfare at the charges of the King's Exchequer, and there is no fear that Faith's bank shall ever be broken. Sight builds the house from its own quarry, and on its own foundation, but it begins to build and is never able to finish, and what it does build rests on the sand and falls. But faith builds on the foundation laid in eternity, in the fair colours of the Saviour's blood, in the covenant of grace. It goes to God for every stone to be used in the building, and brings forth the topstone with shoutings of "Grace, grace unto it."

790. Simplicity, Beauty of The moment you get to complexity you get into a snarl, and are on the brink of weakness. Simplicity, how solid it is! See the old-fashioned plan of putting a plank across the village brook—that was the old way of making a bridge. Well, then, somebody came in and invented an arch—a grand invention, certainly, but not in all cases available, because in a measure complex. What are the engineers coming back to? The old plan of the plank. The Menai tubular bridge is nothing more than the old plan of a plank thrown across the brook, and more and more great engineers revert to simplicities. When man grows wisest, he comes back to where he was when he started. I suppose that when the swan first sailed across the lake it gave to the navigator the best possible model of a vessel, to which navigation will always have to keep close if it would keep close to the true and beautiful. Now, as in nature simplicity is strength, so is it certainly in grace. Trust Christ and live! and let me say, simple as it looks, it is the most philosophical plan of salvation that could have been thought out, for faith is the mainspring of the entire man, and when faith is right all the powers are right.

791. Simplicity in Preaching

If it be granted that a spice of vulgarity may adapt a man for special service among navvies and costermongers, we question whether even with them there may not be a more excellent way, and there are other people in the world to be considered besides these. We are confident that, ordinarily, coarseness is weakness, and ought to be avoided; and we should no more think of preaching the gospel in the slang of the thieves' kitchen than in the jargon of the Neologists. The gospel's apples of gold are worthy to be carried in baskets of silver. Language should be fitted to the dignity of the subject. The most truly dignified language is, however, the simplest; simplicity and sublimity are next of kin. Gospel simplicity is equally removed from childishness and coarseness. Bunyan's English is as pure as it is plain. Our grand old authorised version is a model of speech; though marred here and there by an antique indelicacy, it is, as a whole, perfection itself, both for grandeur and simplicity of style. We need men who not only speak so that they can be understood, but so that they cannot be misunderstood. The plodding multitudes will never be benefited by preaching which requires them to bring a dictionary with them to the house of God. Why should they be called to work on the day of rest in order to get at the minister's meaning? Of what use is it to them to listen to spread-eagle talk, which conveys to them no clear sense? The Reformation banished an unknown tongue from the reading-desk: we need another to banish it from the pulpit. I speak for English people, and demand English preaching.

792. Singing, a part of Divine Worship

We should do well if we added to our godly service more singing. The world sings: the million have their songs; and I must say the taste of the populace is a very remarkable taste just now as to its favourite songs. They are, many of them, so absurd and meaningless as to be unworthy of an idiot. I should insult an idiot if I could suppose that such songs as people sing nowadays would really be agreeable to him. Yet these things will be heard from men, and places will be thronged to hear the stuff. Now, why should we, with the grand psalms we have of David, with the noble hymns of Cowper, of Milton, of Watts—why should not we sing as well as they? Let us sing the songs of Zion: they are as cheerful as the songs of Sodom any day. Let us drown the howling nonsense of Gomorrah with the melodies of the New Jerusalem.

793. Singing, Revival in

It is always a token of a revival of religion, it is said, when there is a revival of psalmody. When Luther's preaching began to tell upon men, you could hear ploughmen at the plough tail singing Luther's psalms. Whitfield and Wesley had never done the great work they did if it had not been for Charles Wesley's poetry, and for the singing of such men as Toplady, and Scott, and Newton, and many others of the same class; and even now we mark that since there ha? been somewhat of a religious revival in our denominations, there are more hymn-books than ever there were, and far more attention is paid to Christian psalmody than before. When your heart is full of Christ, you will want to sing. It is a blessed thing to sing at your labour and work, if you are in a place where you can do so; and if the world should laugh at you, you must tell them that you have as good a right to sing the songs that delight your heart as they have to sing any of the songs in which their hearts delight. Praise his name, Christians; be not dumb; sing aloud unto Jesus the Lamb; and if we as Englishmen can sometimes sing our national air, let us as believers have our national hymn, and sing—

"Crown him, crown him Lord of all."

794. Singing and Suffering

I love to think of Christ's army of martyrs, ay, and of all his church, marching over the battle-field, singing as they fight, never ceasing the song, never suffering a note to fall, and at the same time advancing from victory to victory; chanting the sacred hallelujah while they tramp over their foes. I saw one day upon the lake of Orta, in northern Italy, on some holyday of the Church of Rome, a number of boats coming from all quarters of the lake towards the church upon the central islet of the lake, and it was singularly beautiful to hear the splash of the oars and the sound of song as the boats came up in long processions, with all the villagers in them, bearing their banners to the appointed place of meeting. As the oars splashed they kept time to the rowers, and the rowers never missed a stroke because they sang, neither was the song marred because of the splash of the oars, but on they came, singing and rowing; and so has it been with the church of God. That oar of obedience, and that other oar of suffering—the church has learned to ply both of these, and to sing as she rows: "Thanks be unto God, who always maketh us to triumph in every place!" Though we be made to suffer and be made to fight, yet we are more than conquerors, because we are conquerors even while fighting; we sing even in the heat of the battle, waving high the banner, and dividing the spoil even in the centre of the fray. When the fight is hottest, we are then most happy; and when the strife is sternest, then most blessed; and when the battle grows most arduous, then, "calm 'mid the bewildering cry, confident of victory."

795. Signs, Unreasonableness of Seeking for To ask a sign from God when he pledges his word seems to me to be out of all reason. You are a beggar, remember, and we have an old proverb that beggars must not be choosers; above all, how dare a beggar demand a sign before he will receive an alms? I am walking in the street, and am accosted by a hungry man, and if I offer him a loaf of bread, is he to refuse to take it unless I will fly in the air or help him to turn a stone into bread? "Let the man starve, sir," you will say, "if he be so unreasonable as to demand a sign." And yet that is just like you, you will not take the mercy which the gospel freely offers you, which God even commands you to accept—you will not take it unless some astounding sign or wonder shall be wrought in you.

796. Sin, beginning in the Heart

Persons will dare to profess the religion of Christ who can enjoy a lascivious song and broad talk, who are given to what is softly styled imprudence, which is really impurity. Impure familiarities, glances, and sports, are the commencement of actual crimes. Men and women who in any way injure their delicacy and modesty, by insensible degrees proceed to overt sin. All men wonder when a professor falls into foul sin, but they would not wonder if they knew how long the transgressor had gone to the verge of the precipice; the wonder would be rather that the moth had not burnt its wings in the candle long before. Oh, hate the very thoughts of uncleanness! Your members are members of Christ, your bodies are to be raised in the image of Christ; defile them not, but walk with the utmost purity as in the sight of the thrice holy God.

797. Sin Blotted Out In some parts of Scripture we read of sin being "wiped out," and the expression is remarkably expressive. Sometimes the wiping out refers to the housewife's meaning of the word—when the dish is wiped out and turned bottom upwards; so can God take our sinful souls and wipe them right out, so that they shall be perfectly clean, and the pot which was filthy and had death in it, shall be "holiness unto the Lord." At other times the wiping out refers to the erasure of notes made upon tablets. Some writings are cleared off with a sponge; at other times, if the tablet was of wax, and the marks were made with an iron pen, or stylus, then the wax was softened and smoothed again, and all evidence of the record totally disappeared. Though our sins be written with an iron pen, and graven with the point of a diamond upon the very horns of our altars, yet will the Lord make the record to disappear when his mercy is revealed to our faith. He blots out the handwriting which was against us, he puts it out of the way, nailing it to the cross; he makes our sins, like clouds, to pass away for ever. God can, O sinner, wipe out your transgressions so that they shall not exist; through the precious blood of Jesus he can finish your transgressions, and make an end of all your sin.

798. Sin, calling for the Gospel The very sins of men, horrible as they are to think upon, may be made an argument for proclaiming the gospel. Oh, the cruel and ravenous sins which destroy the sons of men, and rend their choicest joys in pieces! When I see monstrous lusts defiling the temple of God, and gods many and lords many usurping the throne of the Almighty, I can hear aloud the cry, "Who will go for us?" Do not perishing souls suggest to us the question of the text? Men are going down to the grave, perishing for lack of knowledge; the tomb engulfs them, eternity swallows them up, and in the dark they die without a glimmer of hope. No candle of the Lord ever shines upon their faces. By these perishing souls we implore you to feel that heralds of the cross are wanted, wanted lest these souls be ruined everlastingly; wanted that they may be lifted up from the dunghill of their corruption, and made to sit among princes redeemed by Christ Jesus. The cry swells into a wail of mighty pathetic pleading; all time echoes it, and all eternity prolongs it, while heaven, and earth, and hell give weight to the chorus.

799. Sin Conquered by Christ

I think I see before me the hero of Golgotha using his cross as an anvil, and his woes as a hammer, and dashing to shivers bundle after bundle of our sins, those poisoned "arrows of the bow;" trampling on every charge, and destroying every accusation. What glorious blows the mighty breaker gives! How the weapons fly to fragments, beaten small as the dust of the threshing floor! Behold, I see him drawing from its sheath of hellish workmanship the dread sword of hellish power! See, he snaps it across his knee, as a man breaks the dry wood of a fagot, and casts it into the fire. Like David, he crieth, "He teacheth my hands to war; so that a bow of steel is broken by mine arms." "I have pursued mine enemies, and destroyed them; and turned not again until I had consumed them. And I have consumed them and wounded them, that they could not arise: yea, they are fallen under my feet..... Then did I beat them as small as the dust of the earth; I did stamp them as the mire of the street." Beloved, no sin of a believer can now be an arrow mortally to wound him, no condemnation can now be a sword to kill him, for the punishment of our sin was borne by Christ, a full atonement has been made for all our iniquities by our blessed Substitute and Surety. Who now accuseth? Who now condemneth? Christ hath died, yea, rather hath risen again. Let hell, if it can, find a single arrow to shoot against the beloved of the Lord; they are all broken, not one of them is left. Christ has emptied the quivers of hell, has quenched every fiery dart, and broken off the head of every arrow of wrath; the ground is strewn with the splinters and relics of the weapons of hell's warfare, which are only visible to us to remind us of our former danger, and of our great deliverance. Sin hath no more dominion over us. Jesus has made an end of it, and put it away for ever. O thou enemy, destructions are come to a perpetual end. Talk ye of all the wondrous works of the Lord, ye who make mention of his name, keep not silence.

800. Sin, Destroying Power of

You have heard of the Spartan youth who concealed a stolen fox under his garment, and although it was eating into his bowels, he would not show it, and therefore died through the creature's bites; you are of that sort, sinner, you are carrying sin in your bosom, and it is eating out your heart. God knows what it is, and you know what it is; now you cannot keep it there and be unbitten, undestroyed. Why keep it there? Oh cry to God with a vehement cry, God save me from my sin! Oh bring me, even me, to the foot of thy Son's cross, and forgive me, and then crucify my sin, for I see clearly now that sin must perish or I must.

801. Sin Glorifying Christ's Power

I suppose great engineers have been very glad of Niagara, that they might span it, very glad of the Mont Cenis, that they might bore it, very glad of the Suez Isthmus, that they might cut a canal through it, glad that there were difficulties that there might be room for engineering skill. Were there no sin there had been no Saviour; if no death, no resurrection; if no fall, no new covenant; if no rebellious race, no incarnation, no Calvary, no ascension, no second advent. That is a grand way of looking at evil, and marvellously stimulating. Though we do not know, and perhaps shall never know, the deepest reason why an infinitely gracious God permitted sin and suffering to enter the universe, yet we may at least encourage this practical thought—God will be glorified in the overcoming of evil and its consequences, and therefore let us gird up our loins in God's name for our part of the conflict.

802. Sin, Hardening Nature of

I have heard that the men who make the big boilers in Southwark, when they are first put inside the boiler, are nearly stunned by the horrible noise made by those who are hammering on the outside, but after a while they get so used to the sound that they can almost go to sleep, and let the men hammer away as long as they please. Or, as Rowland Hill has said, "Men become like the blacksmith's dog, which goes to sleep while the sparks are flying about its ears," so there are many who, after awhile, will go to sleep under the most startling sermons. They used to hear a minister who spoke very plain English to them, and they were greatly startled, and they said, "I cannot hear him and go on in sin;" but they can hear him quietly now, and not only go on in their old sins, but wax worse and worse.

803. Sin in the Heart

There was a citizen of Gaunt who had never been outside the city walls. For some reason or other the magistrate passed an order that he should not go outside. Strange to tell, up to the moment that the command had passed, the man had been perfectly easy, and never thought of passing the line, but as soon as ever he was forbidden to do it, he pined, and sickened, and even died moaning over the restriction. If a man sees a thing to be law, he wants to break that law. Our nature is so evil, that forbid us to do a thing, and at once we want to do the thing that is forbidden, and in many minds the principle of law instead of leading to purity has even offered opportunities for greater impurity. Beside, although you may point out the way of uprightness to a man, and tell him what is right and what is wrong, with all the wisdom and force of counsel and caution, unless you can give him a heart to choose the right, and a heart to love the true, you have not done much for him. This is just the province of law. It can write out its precepts on the brazen tablets, and it can brandish its fiery sword, and say, "Do this, or else be punished," but man, carnal man, only wraps himself the more closely in his self-conceit, and perseveres the more doggedly in his obstinate rebellion.

804. Sin Meeting on Christ

Before a great storm, when the sky is growing black and the wind is beginning to howl, you have seen the clouds hurrying from almost every point of the compass, as though the great day of battle were come, and all the dread artillery of God were hurrying to the field. In the centre of the whirlwind and the storm, when the lightnings threaten to set all heaven on a blaze, and the black clouds fold on fold labour to conceal the light of day, you have a very graphic metaphor of the meeting of all sin upon the person of Christ, the sin of the ages past and the sin of the ages to come, the sins of those of the elect who were in heathendom, and of those who were in Jewry; the sin of the young and of the old, sin original and sin actual, all made to meet, all the black clouds concentrated and brought together into one great tempest, that it might rush in one tremendous tornado upon the person of the great Redeemer and Substitute.

805. Sin not to be Removed by Man

Man tries to act as a bleacher to his sin, and he dips the stained garment into the strong liquid which is to make it white, hoping that some spots will be removed; but when he takes it out again, if his eye be clear, he says, "Alas! it seems as spotted as ever. I laid it to soak in that which I thought full surely would take out the stain, but so far as I can see, there is another stain added to the rest. I find myself worse instead of better; I must add a more pungent salt, I must use a stronger lye. I must make my tears more briny, I must fetch them up from the deep salt wells of my heart." He lays his vesture again to soak, but each time as he takes it out his own eyes become more keen, and he sees more foulness in the garment than he had observed before. Then goeth he and taketh unto himself nitre and much soap, but when he has used it all, when he has gone to his church, when he has gone to his chapel, when he has repeated his prayers, attended to ceremonies, done I know not what to prove the genuineness of his repentance, ah! the iniquity is still there, and will be there, and must be, let him do what he may. Yet what your repentings cannot do in thousands of years God can do for you, sinner, and that in one single day.

806. Sin, Original Our father Adam had a great estate enough at first, but he soon lost it. He violated the trust on which he held his property, and he was cast out of the inheritance, and turned adrift into the world to earn his bread as a day labourer by tilling the ground whence he was taken. His eldest son was a vagabond; the first-born of our race was a convict upon ticket-of-leave. If any suppose that we have inherited some good thing by natural descent, they go very contrary to what David tells us, when he declares, "Behold, I was shapen in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me." Our first parents were utter bankrupts. They left us nothing but a heritage of old debts, and a propensity to accumulate yet more personal obligations. Well may we be poor who come into this world "heirs of wrath," with a decayed estate and tainted blood.

807. Sin, Overcoming

How grand a thing to get a passion down and hold it by the throat, strangling it despite its struggles! It is fine work to hang up some old sin as an accursed thing before the Lord, just as they hung up the Canaanitish kings before the face of the sun; or if you cannot quite kill the lust, it is honourable work to roll a great stone at the cave's mouth, and shut in the wretches till the evening comes, when they shall meet their doom. It is a joyous thing when by God's grace under temptation you are kept from falling as you did on a former occasion, and so are made conquerors over a weakness which was your curse in past years. It is a noble thing to be made strong through the blood of the Lamb so as to overcome sin.

808. Sin, Past, to be Hated

I hate to hear a man speak of his experience in sin as a Greenwich pensioner might talk of Trafalgar and the Nile. The best thing to do with our past sin, if it be indeed forgiven, is to bury it; yes, and let us bury it as they used to bury suicides, let us drive a stake through it, in horror and contempt, and never set up a monument to its memory. If you ever do tell anybody about your youthful wrong-doing, let it be with blushes and tears, with shame and confusion of face; and always speak of it to the honour of the infinite mercy which forgave you.

809. Sin put away by Christ

Speak of the load which Atlas carried, when he is fabled to have sustained the world, it was nothing compared with this more than Atlantean load which crushes us down, and will crush us to the lowest hell. "I will remove it," says the Saviour, and he has kept his word He took the load upon his own shoulders, and so removed it from us; and then he carried it right up to the cross, and from the top of Calvary he hurled it into his sepulchre, and there he left it, a dead and buried thing; and if it be searched for it shall not be found, "Yea, it shall not be," saith the Lord.

810. Sin put away by the Penalty being Borne

Sin cannot be put away until the penalty is borne to the end, and that can never be by finite man. What a work was here, then, for the only begotten Son of God to do! Speak of the labours of Hercules! they were nothing compared with the labours of Emmanuel. Speak of miracles! to tread the sea, to hush the billows, to heal the sick, to raise the dead, these are all bright stars, but their light is hid when compared with this miracle of miracles, when the Sun of Christ's righteousness arises with healing beneath his wings, and thick clouds of sin are put away by him.

811. Sin, Terrible Nature of That plant must possess great vitality which increases by being uprooted and cut down. That which lives by being killed is strangely full of force. That must be a very hard substance which is hardened by lying in the blast furnace, in the central heat of the fire, where iron melts and runs like wax. That must be a very terrible power which gathers strength from that which should restrain it, and rushes on the more violently in proportion as it is reigned in. Sin kills men by that which was ordained to life. It makes heaven's gifts the stepping stones to hell, uses the lamps of the temple to show the way to perdition, and makes the ark of the Lord as in Uzzah's case, the messenger of death. Sin is that strange fire which burns the more fiercely for being damped, finding fuel in the water which was intended to quench it. The Lord brings good out of evil, but sin brings evil out of good. It is a deadly evil, judge ye how deadly! O that men knew its nature and abhorred it with all their hearts! May the Eternal Spirit teach men to know aright this worst of ills, that they may flee from it to him who alone can deliver.

812. Sin, Thoughts of, to be Abhorred

I do not believe that a man becomes a villain all at once. He puts his soul to school, his thoughts are his teachers, or rather they are the school-books in which his soul reads; and at last he becomes capable of transacting the deeds of a scoundrel. If you think long upon any sin, the chances are that, as soon as the temptation to that sin comes you will commit it. I have known persons produce a monomania by constant brooding. I did know once a man who was constantly apprehensive that he was being poisoned by people; and I always stood in trepidation for that man lest he should poison himself. If you will harbour the thought—if you will ruminate on any sin, turn it over, and advise with it on your pillow, your affability will disarm your fear; and the traitor you have harboured will betray you before your suspicions are aroused. Beware, then, of all thoughts of sin. If you show a thief all the locks, and bolts, and bars in your house, and tell him how the cellar-window could be opened, or the back-door lock be made to give way, do not be surprised if, one of these nights, you should find all your goods stolen. If you will do this, and introduce these evil things into your habitation, you cannot wonder at the consequence, however startled your friends may be at the detection.

813. Sin to be Hated by the Christian

Look down the roll of history and see if sin be not man's worst enemy. Whose hot breath blasted Eden, withered all its bowers of bliss, and caused the earth to become barren, so that without labour even unto sweat she will not yield bread for our sustenance! Mark well yon innumerable graves which cover every plain with hillocks. Who slew all these? By what gate came death into the world? Was not sin the janitor to open the portal? Hearken at this moment to the shouts of war which in every age of the world's history have created a horrible din of groans of dying men, and shrieks of flying women. Who first dipped yon flag in blood, and made the air pestilent with carnage? And yonder despotic throne, which has crushed down the multitude and made the lives of many bitter with hard bondage, who laid its dark foundations and cemented it with blood? Whence came war with its carnage, and tyranny with its sufferings? Whence, indeed, but from the sins and lusts of men? All over the world, if there be hemlock in the furrow, and thistles on the ridge, sin's hand has sown them broadcast. Sin turned the apples of Sodom to ashes, and the grapes of Gomorrah to gall. The trail of this serpent, with its horrid slime, has obliterated the footsteps of joy. Before the march of sin I see the garden of the Lord, and behind it a desert and a charnel. Stay ye awhile. Nay, start not, but come with me. Look down into the ghastly gloom of Tophet, that region abhorred, where dwell the finally impenitent, who died with unforgiven sins upon their heads. Can you bear to hear their groans and moans of anguish? We will not attempt to describe the sufferings of spirits driven from their God, eter nally banished from all hope and peace; but we will ask you, O son of man, who digged yon pit, and cast men into it? Who provides the fuel for that terrible flame, and whence getteth the worm that dieth not its tooth which never blunts? Sin has done it all. Sin, the mother of hell, the fire fountain to which ye may trace each burning stream. O sin, it is not meet that any heir from heaven, redeemed from hell, should make friends with thee. Shall we fondle the adder, or press the deadly cobra to our bosom? If it had not been for the grace of God our sins would have shut us up in hell already, and even now they seek to drag us there; therefore, let us take these enemies of our souls and slay them—let not one escape.

814. Sin, to Die in the Believer

There were certain heretics who disturbed the early Christian church, who said that our Lord did not really and actually die; but we know that he died, for his heart was pierced by the spear, and the flowing of the blood and water proved that he was in very deed most truly dead. Moreover, the Roman officer would not have sanctioned that the body should be given up if he had not made sure that he was dead already, and even made assurance doubly sure by piercing our Lord's most blessed side. Christ really and truly died, there was no sham or make believe; it was no phantom which bled, and the atoning death was no syncope or long swoon. Even thus it must be with our old propensities; they must not pretend to die, but actually die; they must not be restrained by holy customs; they must not be mewed up by temporary austerities, or laid in a trance by fleeting reveries, or ostentatiously buried alive by religious resolves and professions; they must actually die, and die a real and true death before the Lord and within our souls.

815. Sinner, Appeal to, to receive Christ

It is dreadful to compel a city to open its gates unwillingly to let an enemy come in, for however gentle be the enemy his face is an unwelcome sight to the vanquished. But oh! how I wish I could burst open the gates of a sinner's heart to-day, for the Prince Emmanuel to come in. He who is at your gates is not an alien monarch, he is your rightful prince, he is your friend and lover. It will not be a strange face that you will see, when Jesus comes to reign in you. When the King in his beauty wins your soul, you will think yourselves a thousand fools that you did not receive him before. Instead of fearing that he will ransack your soul, you will open all its doors, and invite him to search each room. You will cry, "Take all, thou blessed monarch, it shall be most mine when it is thine. Take all, and reign and rule."

816. Sinner Aroused, Hopefulness of

Men who are dissatisfied with the darkness are evidently not altogether dead, for the dead shall slumber in the catacombs, heedless whether it be noon or night. Such men are evidently not altogether asleep, for they that slumber shall sleep the better for the darkness; they ask no sunbeams to molest their dreams. Such people are evidently not altogether blind, for to the blind little doth it matter whether the sun floods the landscape with glory, or night conceal it with her sable veil. Those to whom our thoughts are directly turned are evidently somewhat awakened, aroused, and bestirred, and this is no small blessing, for, alas! the most of men are a stolid mass as regards spiritual things, and the preacher might almost as hopefully strive to create a soul within the ribs of death, or extort warm tears of pity from Sicilian marble, as to evoke spiritual emotions from the men of this generation. So far, the persons whom I seek, are hopeful in their condition; for as the trees twist their branches towards the sunlight, so do these long after Jesus, the light and life of men.

817. Sinner Asleep in Danger

It is said that on the great river of America, there was once seen a canoe some miles off Niagara floating down the stream, and as the current turned it so that those on the bank could well perceive it, they saw that the paddle was shipped and an Indian was lying in the canoe fast asleep. They shouted as best they could to awake him, for they knew well the imminent hazard of the poor wretch. They shouted, and called aloud, as they ran along the bank, but it was of no use. He had either been drinking or had been so fatigued that his slumber was most profound, and the canoe went floating on, continually increasing its pace. It dashed at last against a headland, and spun round in the torrent; and they said one to another, "He is safe, the man will be awakened. Such a start as that will surely arouse him, and he will paddle out of danger." But no, he went right on till the roaring of the fall was near, and then the course of the boat was so rapid that none could keep up with it, and it went whirling on faster and faster. So profound was the Indian's sleep, that for awhile even the roar of the fall did not awaken him; at last he was aroused, and then he grasped his paddle; but it was all too late; he was borne onward, and the last that was seen of him was his standing bolt upright in the boat, as it plunged over the abyss, and was never seen or heard of more. Ah! my fellow men, how like is this to those of you who are asleep and are borne onward by the treacherous current. That fever, that sick-bed, like a headland jutting into the stream, methought it would have made you think. That frail bark of thine was twisted round and round. O that thy soul had but been aroused from its slumber! The noise of hell may well be in thy ears, and the sound that cometh up from the abyss of terror may well arouse thee; but alas! I fear thou wilt sleep on until the cataract of destruction shall be just before thee in the pangs of death, and then, alas! full of horror, thou shalt seek escape when escape is no longer possible.

818. Sinner, Blindness of the

I being my blind friend to an elevated spot, and I bid him look upon yonder landscape. "See how the silver river threads its way amid the emerald fields. See how yonder trees make up a shadowy wood; how wisely yonder garden, near at hand, is cultivated to perfection; and how nobly yonder lordly castle rises on yon knoll of matchless beauty." See, he shakes his head; he has no admiration for the scene. I borrow poetical expressions, but still he joins not in my delight. I try plain words and tell him, "There is the garden, and there is the castle, and there is the wood, and there is the river—do you not see them?" "No," he cannot see one of them, and does not know what they are like. What ails the man? Have not I described the landscape well? Have I been faulty in my explanations? Have I not given him my own testimony that I have walked those glades and sailed along that stream? He shakes his head, my words are lost. His eyes alone are to blame. Let us come to this conviction about sinners; for, if not, we shall hammer away and do nothing: let us be assured that there is something the matter with the sinner himself which we cannot cure, let us do what we will with him, and yet we cannot get him saved unless it be cured.

819. Sinner, Called to Christ In the courts of law I have sometimes heard a man called as a witness, and no sooner is he called, though he may be at the end of the court, than he begins to press his way up to the witness box. Nobody says, "Who is this man pushing here?" or, if they should say, "Who are you?" it would be a sufficient answer to say, "My name was called." "But you are not rich, you have no gold ring upon your finger!" "No, but that is not it, I was called." "But you are not a man of repute, or rank, or character." "It matters not, I was called; make way." So make way, ye doubts and fears, make way, ye devils of the infernal lake, Christ calls the sinner. Sinner, come. Though thou hast nought to recommend thee, yet, since it is written, "Him that cometh unto me I will in no wise cast out;" come thou, and the Lord bless thee, for Christ's sake.

820. Sinner, Cries of, Heard by God

If the booming of the storm and the roar of the tempest, when the thunders roll like drums in the march of the God of armies; if the clapping of the thousand hands of the roaring sea when it rejoices in its strength should not be heard by the eternal ear, yet, surely, the bemoanings of a sinner should be regarded. The crash of thunder is to the Lord no more than the sound of the falling of a sere leaf on a still summer's eve, but the cry of one of his children peals through heaven, and moves the infinite heart, so that swift on wings of love the God of mercy flies.

821. Sinner, Death of a When the death-thirst is in your throat, what do you think you will do without God? To die in God's presence, is simply to let life blossom into something better than life; but to die without God must be horrible! You will not want your boon companions then. The drink will not pacify you then. Music will have no charms for you then. The love of a tender and gentle wife can yield you but sorry comfort then. You may have your money bags at your side, but they will not calm your palpitating heart then. You will hear the boomings of the waves of the great sea of eternity; you will feel your feet slipping into the dreadful quicksand; you will clutch about you for help, but there will be none! Instead thereof invisible hands shall begin to pull you down, and down through the dark sea you must descend to those darker depths, where dread despair will be your everlasting heritage!

822. Sinner, Destitute of Power

If this world of ours could suddenly be left to itself, could forget the centripetal force which holds it in alliance with the sun, and could set out upon a fearful journey into the darkness of far-off space, if it should travel so far away that no longer could a single beam of light reach it from the sun, and it were altogether in darkness, it is quite certain that it could never find the sun again; for who could light a candle upon the earth wherewith we might search for the sun? The sun can only be seen by its own light. Where upon earth would be found the bands and cords with which to draw us back to the sun? The world could only be drawn by an influence from the sun itself; the central orb must give the motive power. So, when a soul wanders from God, it has no light in it with which to see God, and no force in it to draw God to itself. God must enlighten and draw the soul to him. In a threefold sense we are lost:—by nature, by practice, and by an utter inability to find out our God, and to return to him. Yet, terrible as this lost estate is, "The Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost."

823. Sinner, Doom of a A grim assemblage must gather around some men's beds when guilt, like a grim chamberlain, shall usher them in one by one, and call out their names with horrible distinctness, and tell out their doings and dealings with the wretch who shivers on the brink of death accused by so many, and unable to answer one of a thousand. I picture such a man travelling over the wastes of remorse, hounded by the wolves of his past sins, rushing with desperation into a destruction still worse than his present woe, all unable to endure the horrible baying of his old sins, much less to endure their sharper fangs when they shall tear him in pieces, and there shall be none to deliver.

824. Sinner, Driven to and Drawn by Christ The dove may have been driven part of the way to the ark by the wind, but the last act of getting into the ark was when Noah put out his hand and pulled the dove into the ark. The real act which brings us into connection with Christ, is always a drawing act—an act of gentleness. Every converted man may say, when he is converted, "Thy gentleness has made me great." The heathen picture one of their goddesses in her chariot drawn by doves. Surely it is by doves that we are drawn, in the chariot of the gospel, towards the Lord Jesus!

825. Sinner, End of a

It is ill with thee, sinner, because thy joys all hang upon a thread. Let life's thread be cut, and where are thy merriments? Thy dainty music and thy costly cups, the mirth that flashes from thy wanton eye, and the jollity of thy thoughtless soul, where will this be when death, with bony hand, shall come and touch thy heart, and make it cease its beating? It is ill with you, because when these Joys are over you have no more to come. You have one bright chapter in the story, but ah! the never-ending chapter, it is woe, woe, woe from beginning to the end: the woe of death, and after death the judgment, and after judgment the woe of condemnation, and then that woe that rolleth onward for ever, eternal woe, never coming to a pause, never knowing an alleviation.

826. Sinner, Enlightenment of the

I can only compare the enlightened sinner to a person who has been shut up in a dark prison and has never seen the light, and suddenly his liberator opens a window and the prisoner is staggered and amazed at what he sees when he looks abroad on hill and flood. To the believer, heaven-given sight is so superlative a gift, and what is revealed to him so amazes him, that he scarce knows where he is. Very frequently, when Christ opens the eyes, it is done in a moment, and done completely in that moment, though in other instances it is a more gradual light: men are at first seen as trees walking, and then by degrees film after film is taken from the spiritual eye.

827. Sinner, Folly of Be not like the foolish drunkard who, staggering home one night, saw his candle lit for him. "Two candles," said he, for his drunkenness made him see double, "I will blow out one;" and, as he blew it out, in a moment he was in the dark. Many a man sees double through the drunkenness of sin—he thinks he has one life to sow his wild oats in, and then the last part of life in which to turn to God; so, like a fool, he blows out the only candle that he has, and in the dark he will have to lie down for ever.

828. Sinner, Impossibility of his Hiding from God

It was said of the Roman empire under the Cæsars that the whole world was only one great prison for Cæsar, for if any man offended the Emperor it was impossible for him to escape. If he crossed the Alps, could not Cæsar find him out in Gaul? If he sought to hide himself in the Indies, even the swarthy monarchs there knew the power of the Roman arms, so that they would give no shelter to a man who had incurred imperial vengeance. And yet, perhaps, a fugitive from Rome might have prolonged his miserable life by hiding in the dens and caves of the earth. But, O sinner, there is no hiding from God.

829. Sinner in Heaven, out of place A bee in a garden in the midst of the flowers is at home, and gathers honey from all their cups and bells; but open the gate and admit a swine, and it sees no beauty in lilies and roses, and gillyflowers; and, therefore, it proceeds to root and tear and spoil in all directions. Such would an unregenerate man be in heaven. While holy saints shall find bliss in everything in the paradise of God, an ungodly sinner would be at war with everything in that holy region.

830. Sinner must be Driven to Christ When a man is at first alarmed about his soul he will do anything rather than come to Christ. Christ is a harbour that no ship ever enters except under stress of weather. Mariners on the sea of life steer for any port except the fair haven of free grace.

831. Sinner, Pity for the

I hear enchanting music, which seems more a thing of heaven than of earth: it is one of Handel's half-inspired oratorios. Yonder sits a man who says, "I hear nothing to commend." He has not the power to perceive the linked sweetnesses, the delicious harmonies of sounds. Do you blame him? No, but you who have an ear for music say, "How I pity him, he misses half the joy of life!" Here, again, is a glorious landscape, hills and valleys, and flowing rivers, expansive lakes, and undulating meadows. I bring to the point of view a friend whom I would gratify, and I say to him, "Is not that a charming scene?" Turning his head to me he says, "I see nothing." I perceive that he cannot enjoy what is so delightful to me; he has some little sight, but he sees only what is very near, and he is blind to all beyond. Now, do I blame him? Or if he proceed to argue with me, and say, "You are very foolish to be so enthusiastic about a nonexistent landscape, it is merely your excitement," shall I argue with him? Shall I be angry with him? No, but I shed a tear and whisper to myself, "Great are the losses of the blind." Now, you who have never heard music in the name of Jesus, you are to be greatly pitied, for your loss is heavy. You who never saw beauty in Jesus, and who never will for ever, you need all our tears. It is hell enough not to love Christ! It is the lowest abyss of Tartarus, and its fiercest flame, not to be enamoured of the Christ of God.

832. Sinner, Ruin of the

Ah, poor sinner, what a ruin you are at best! Alas! for human dignity, with its lofty pinnacles of morality and turrets of excellency. What theatrical pasteboard! What sand-built rubbish all appears when seen in the blaze of divine light! Vain are your filmings of your deadly sore; your heart is in itself vile and deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. You may wash the platter as you may, you may make the outside of the cup as clean as you will, but your inward parts are very wickedness. The imaginations of the thoughts of your hearts are evil, only evil, and that continually.

"Ye must be born again;" your nature is too depraved for mending. You must be created anew in Christ Jesus.

833. Sinner Welcomed to Christ

I have never heard of Jesus Christ shutting the door against a sinner. There is a notice that is put in some gentlemen's parks, stating that they do not allow beggars nor dogs there; but Jesus Christ puts up a notice that he does allow beggars; in fact, there are none but beggars who ever go to him; and even those who are such beggars that you would not pick their clothes from a dunghill, Jesus Christ receives into his house, into his heart, into the bath of his blood, and wraps them in the robe of his perfect righteousness. O poor sinner, do come and try him, and he will not cast you out!

834. Sinner, the, a Criminal At this present moment you are spared, and suffered to go about this world, but you are like a criminal in a condemned cell. The sentence has gone out against you, and only God's longsuffering stays that gleaming axe from falling and utterly destroying you. Do you understand that? Have you really got that thought into you? There you are, just like a man to be beheaded, with your neck on the block, and the axe uplifted now, and it may fall. While I am yet speaking the axe of death may come, and you, soul and body, may be lost for ever ere that clock ticks again. You know this, but do you understand it? Will you try to understand it? Will you try to make it real to your thoughts? For methinks if you would there would be some hope that now you would escape from your present ruin, and lift up your heart to the great Father of mercies, and say, "Lord, save me, or I perish."

835. Sinners' Best Plea A man called at my house some time ago for charity; an arrant beggar, I have no doubt. Thinking that the man's rags and poverty were real, I gave him a little money, some of my clothes, and a pair of shoes. After he had put them on and gone out, I thought, "Well, after all, I have done you a bad turn very likely, for you will not get so much money now as before, because you will not look so wretched an object." Happening to go out a quarter of an hour afterwards, I saw my friend, but he was not wearing the clothes I had given him, not he; why, I should have ruined his business if I could have compelled him to look respectable. He had been wise enough to slip down an archway, take all the good clothes off, and put his rags on again. Did I blame him? Yes, for being a rogue, but not for carrying on his business in a business-like manner. He only wore his proper livery, for rags are the livery of a beggar. The more ragged he looked the more he would get. Just so is it with you. If you are to go to Christ, do not put on your good doings and feelings, or you will get nothing; go in your sins, they are your livery. Your ruin is your argument for mercy; your poverty is your plea for heavenly alms; and your need is the motive for heavenly goodness.

836. Sinners, Folly of

I know a man at the present moment, a man I said, but alas! poor wretched mortal, he looks hardly like a man. I saw him in rags, shivering in the drenching rain but yesterday. He came of reputable parents; I knew his relatives well. He had some four hundred pounds or more left him a few years ago. As soon as ever he could get hold of it he came to London, and in about a month he spent it all, in a hideous whirlwind of evil. He went back a beggar and in rags, full of horrible sickness, loathsome, and an outcast. Since that time he has been so often aided by his friends that they have entirely given him up, and now this poor wretch, with scarce enough rags to hide his nakedness, has no eye left to pity him, and no hand to help him. He has been helped again and again, and again; but to help him appears to be useless, for at the very first opportunity he returns to his old sins. The workhouse, the hospital, the grave are his portion, for he seems unable to rise to the dignity of labour, and no one will harbour him. I could fairly cry at the sight of him, but what can be done for him, if he will destroy himself by his sins? If you say to him, "Why do your friends not notice you?" he will tell you, "They cannot notice me." He has brought his mother to the grave; he has wearied out everybody who has pitied him, for his life has been so thoroughly bad that it excites no pity, but disgusts his own relatives. For the love of the Lord Jesus I will try this unhappy man again, and intend to-morrow to see him washed, and clothed, and fed, and put in a way of livelihood, but I have very slender hope of being of any lasting service to him, for he has been tried so often. Yet I never saw a wretch in such misery. He is emaciated, ragged, and has known hunger, and cold, and nakedness month after month, and unless he mends his ways this will be his lot till he dies. We have more than enough of such cases who cross our path, but this one outdoes all. Now I know that some of these forlorn persons sometimes steal into the Tabernacle, and if such be here, let me ask you, what is to be done with you? You put even the best and most tender of persons out of patience with you. Trouble has no power to break you, and kindness no influence to melt you. Oh, while there is a remedy, may God apply it to you poor guilty souls! There are some who have felt these goadings to the most fearful extent, till they have lost all, and yet they cling to their sins. I would to God that saints would cling to Christ half as earnestly as sinners cling to the devil. If we were as willing to suffer for God as some are to suffer for their lusts, what perseverance and zeal would be seen on all sides!

837. Sinners, Ignorance of The man who puts the fire-escape against the window of a burning house, may readily enough rescue those who are aware of their danger, and who rush to the front and help him, or at least are submissive to him in his work of delivering them; but if a man were insane, if he played with the flames, if he were idiotic and thought that some grand illumination were going on, and knew nothing of the danger, but was only "glamoured by the glare," then would it be hard work for the rescuer. Even thus it is with sinners. They know not, though they profess to know, that sin is hell, that to be an alien from God is to be condemned already, to live in sin is to be dead while you live.

838. Sinners, Insensibility of The most of men are not seeking to escape from the wrath to come: they are busy in worldly things while hell is near them; like idiots catching flies on board a ship which is in the very act of going down. Surely those men must have some fictitious hope somewhere, or they would not act like this. We see many persons busy about their persons, decorating themselves when their soul is in ruin; like a man painting the front door when the house is in flames. Surely they must harbour some baseless hope which makes them thus insensible.

839. Sinners Sleeping Do you remember in David's life when he went with one of his mighty men at night into Saul's camp, and found the king and his guards all asleep? There were certain men of war who ought to have watched at Saul's bed head, to take care of their master, who lay in the trench, but no one was awake at all; and David and his friend went all among the sleepers, treading gently and softly, lest they should wake one of them; till, by-and-by, they came to the centre of the circle, where lay the king, with a cruse of water at his bolster, and his spear stuck in the ground. Little did he know as he slept so calmly there that Abishai was saying to David, "Let me strike him; it shall be but this once." How easily that strong hand with that sharp javelin would have pinned the king to the ground. One only stroke, and it would be done, and David's enemy would pursue him no more for ever. Methinks I see you, O ye sleeping sinners, lying in the same imminent peril. At this moment the evil one is saying: "Let me smite him; I will smite him but this once; let me prevent his hearing the gospel this night; let me thrust the javelin of unbelief into his soul but this once; and then the harvest will be past, the summer will be ended, and he will not be saved." Slumbering sinner, I would fain shout as the thunder of God, if thereby I could arouse you. Man, the knife is at your throat, and can you sleep? The spear is ready to smite you, and will you still doat and dream? I think I see the angel of justice who has long been pursuing the sinner who is rejecting Christ, and he cries: "Let me smite him! he has had time enough; let me smite him!" Or, as Christ puts it in the parable, there has come one into the vineyard who has looked at you, the barren tree, and seen no fruit; and he has come these three years, and now he is saying: "Cut it down! why cumbereth it the ground?" O mercy, stay the axe! O God, bid the enemy put by the spear, and let the sleeper wake, not in hell, but still on mercy's plains, where there is a Christ to forgive him and a Spirit to sanctify him!

840. Sins of Omission

Omissions cannot be trivial, if we only reflect what an influence they would have upon an ordinary commonwealth, if they were perpetrated there as they are in God's commonwealth. Think a minute, if one person has a right to omit his duty, another has, and all have. Then the watchman would omit to guard the house, the policeman would omit to arrest the thief, the judge would omit to sentence the offender, the sheriff would omit to punish the culprit, the government would omit to carry out its laws; then every occupation would cease, and the world die of stagnation; the merchant would omit to attend to his calling, the husbandman would omit to plough his land: where would the commonwealth be? The kingdom would be out of joint; the machine would break down, for no cog of the wheels would act upon its fellow. How would societies of men exist at all? And surely if this is not to be tolerated in a society of men, much less in that great commonwealth of which God is the king, in which angels and glorified spirits are the peers, and all creatures citizens? How can the Lord tolerate that here there should be an omission, and there an omission, in defiance of his authority? As the judge of all the earth, he must bring down his strong right hand upon these omissions, and crush out for ever the spirit that would thus revolt against his will.

841. Sitting at Jesus' feet

Imagine not that to sit at Jesus' feet is a very small, unmeaning thing. It means peace, for they who submit to Jesus find peace through his precious blood. It means holiness, for those who learn of Jesus learn no sin, but are instructed in things lovely and of good repute. It means strength, for they that sit with Jesus, and feed upon him are girded with his strength; the joy of the Lord is their strength. It means wisdom, for they that learn of the Son of God understand more than the ancients, because they keep his statutes. It means zeal, for the love of Christ fires hearts that live upon it, and they that are much with Jesus become like Jesus, so that the zeal of the Lord's house eats them up. If we say that in an army the one thing needful is loyalty to the sovereign, we know what that means; for the loyal soldier will be sure to be obedient to his officers, and if attached to his queen, he will be brave in the day of battle, and do his duty well. If we said that the one thing needful in a family was love, we should not have required a small thing, for love will place husband and wife in their true position; love will produce obedience in children, and diligence in servants. Let love permeate everything, and other virtues will grow out of it, as flowers spring from the soil. So when we say that sitting at Jesus' feet is the one thing needful, we have not uttered a mere truism: it comprehends a world of blessings.

842. Sluggish Workers

Men ride stags when they hunt for gain, and snails when they are on the road to heaven. Preachers go on see-sawing, droning, and prosing, and the people fall to yawning and folding their arms, and then say that God is withholding the blessing. Every sluggard when he finds himself enlisted in the ragged regiment, blames his luck, and some churches have learned the same wicked trick. I believe that when Paul plants and Apollos waters, God gives the increase, and I have no patience with those who throw the blame on God when it belongs to themselves.

843. Soldier Tested by the Battle An anchor may be very pretty on shore, and it may be very showy as an ornament when it lies on the ship's deck, or hangs from the side, but what is the good of it if it will not hold when the wind blows, and the vessel needs to be held fast? So, alas! there is much of religion and of godliness, so called, that is no good when it comes to the day of trial. The soldier is truly proved to be a soldier when the war-trumpet sounds, and the regiment must go up to the cannon's mouth. Then shall you know, when the bayonets begin to cross, who has the true soldier's blood in him; but ah! how many turn back when it really comes to the conflict, for then the day of trial is too much for them!

844. Soldier, The Christian A soldier is a practical man, a man who has work to do, and hard, stern work. He may sometimes, when he is at his ease, wear the fineries of war, but when he comes to real warfare he cares little enough for them; the dust and the smoke, and the garments rolled in blood, these are for those who go a soldiering; and swords all hacked, and dented armour, and bruised shields, these are the things that mark the good, the practical soldier. Truly to serve God, really to exhibit Christian graces, fully to achieve a life-work for Christ, actually to win souls, this is to bear fruit worthy of a Christian. A soldier is a man of deeds, and not of words. He has to contend and fight. In war times his life knows little of luxurious ease. In the dead of night perhaps the trumpet sounds to boot and saddle, just at the time when he is most weary, and he must away to the attack just when he would best prefer to take his rest in sleep. The Christian is a soldier in an enemy's country, always needing to stand on his watchtower, constantly to be contending, though not with flesh and blood, with far worse foes, namely, with spiritual wickednesses in high places.

845. Soldiers of Christ called to Conflict

Any service for God, if it be done at all, should be hard work. If you want to be feather-bed soldiers go and enlist somewhere else, but Christ's soldiers must fight, and they will find the battle rough and stern. We, of the church militant, are engaged in no mimic manoeuvres and grand parades; our life is real and earnest; our battle, though not with flesh and blood, is with spiritual wickedness in high places, and it involves hard blows and keen anguish. You must look for real fighting if you become a soldier of Christ, and, O sir, if the excuse for fainting be that the work is toilsome, that it is too much a drag upon you, why did you begin it? You ought to have known this at the first. You should have counted the cost. But, ah, let me add, the work was not toilsome when your heart was loving, neither would it now be so hard if your soul were right with God. This is but an unworthy excuse. Ardent spirits love difficulties; fervent love delights in making sacrifices; they would not wish to swim for ever in smooth seas of pleasure; they know that manhood's truest glory lies in contending with and overcoming that which is hard. Give to the child the easy task, but let the man have something worth the doing to perform. Instead of shrinking because the work is tedious, we ought to gird up our loins and push on the enterprise with all the greater force.

846. Soldiership of the Believer

How needful to be clothed with your armour! How needful to have it of the right kind, to keep it bright, and to wear it constantly! You are a soldier, a soldier in battle, a soldier in the foeman's country, a soldier with a cruel and malicious enemy, who knows neither truce nor parley, and who gives no quarter, but will fight with you till you die. Heaven is the land where your sword should be sheathed; there shall you hang the banner high, but here we wrestle with the foe, and must do so till we cross the torrent of death. Right up to the river's edge roust the conflict be waged. Foot by foot, and inch by inch, must all the land to Canaan's happy shore be won. Not a step can be taken without conflict and strife; but once there, you may lay aside your helmet, and put on your crown, put away your sword, and take your palm-branch; your fingers shall no longer need to learn to war, but your hearts shall learn the music of the happy songsters in the skies.

847. Solitariness of Great Minds A minister fully equipped for his work, will usually be a spirit by himself, above, beyond, and apart from others. The most loving of his people cannot enter into his peculiar thoughts, cares, and temptations. In the ranks men walk shoulder to shoulder, with many comrades, but as the officer rises in rank, men of his standing are fewer in number. There are many soldiers, few captains, fewer colonels, but only one commander-in-chief. So, in our churches, the man whom the Lord raises as a leader becomes, in the same degree in which he is a superior man, a solitary man. The mountain-tops stand solemnly apart, and talk only with God as he visits their terrible solitudes. Men of God who rise above their fellows into nearer communion with heavenly things, in their weaker moments feel the lack of human sympathy. Like their Lord in Gethsemane, they look in vain for comfort to the disciples sleeping around them; they are shocked at the apathy of their little band of brethren, and return to their secret agony with all the heavier burden pressing upon them, because they have found their dearest companions slumbering. No one knows, but he who has endured it, the solitude of a soul which has outstripped its fellows in zeal for the Lord of hosts: it dares not reveal itself, lest men count it mad; it cannot conceal itself, for a fire burns within its bones: only before the Lord does it find rest. Our Lord's sending out his disciples by two and two manifested that he knew what was in man; but for such a man as Paul, it seems to me that no helpmeet was found; Barnabas, or Silas, or Luke, were hills too low to hold high converse with such a Himalayan summit as the apostle of the Gentiles. This loneliness, which if I mistake not is felt by many of my brethren, is a fertile source of depression, and our ministers' fraternal meetings, and the cultivation of holy intercourse with kindred minds will, with God's blessing, help us greatly to escape the snare.

848. Solitude Helpful to Prayer That was a wise direction which the prophet gave to the poor woman when the Lord was about to multiply her oil. "Go, take the cruse," he said, "pour out and fill the borrowed vessels," but what did he also say? "Shut the door upon thee." If the door had been open, some of her gossiping neighbours would have looked in and said, "What are you doing? Do you really hope to fill all these jars out of that little oil cruse? why, woman, you must be mad!" I am afraid she would not have been able to perform that act of faith if the objectors had not been shut out. It is a grand thing when the soul can bolt the doors against distractions, and keep out those intruders; for then it is that prayer and faith will perform their miracle, and our soul shall be filled with the blessing of the Lord. Oh, for grace to overcome circumstances, and at least to breathe out prayer, if we cannot reach to a more powerful form of it!

849. Songs of Heaven Woven out of Trials

I reckon that at the last, when Christian service shall be done, and Christian reward shall be rendered, the toils endured in serving God, the disappointment, and the racking of the heart, will all make raw material for everlasting song. Oh, how we shall bless God to think that we were accounted worthy to do anything for Christ! Was I enlisted in the host that stood the shock of battle? Did the Master suffer me to have a hand upon the standard that waved so proudly aloft amidst the smoke of the battle? Did he suffer me to leap into the ditch, or scale the rampart of the wall amongst the forlorn hope; of did he even suffer me to watch by the baggage while the battle was raging afar off? Then am I thankful that he in any way whatever permitted me to have a share in the glory of that triumphant conflict. And then, brethren, as old soldiers show their scars, and as the warriors in many conflicts delight to tell of hair-breadth escapes in "the imminent breach," and of dangers grim and ghastly, so shall we rejoice as we return to God to tell of our going forth, and of our weeping when we carried the precious seed. There is not a single drop of gall which will not turn to honey. There is not this day one drop of sweat upon your aching brow but shall crystallise into a pearl for your everlasting crown; not one pang of anguish or disappointment but shall be transmuted into celestial glory to increase your joy, world without end.

850. Sonship, Future Manifestation of

Cannot you imagine that a child taken from the lowest ranks of society, who is adopted by a Roman senator, will be saying to himself, "I wish the day were come when I shall be publicly revealed as the child of my new father. Then, I shall leave off these plebeian garments, and be robed as becomes my senatorial rank." Happy in what he has received, for that very reason he groans to get to the fulness of what is promised him. So it is with us to-day. We are waiting till we shall put on our proper garments, and shall be manifested as the children of God. Ye are young princes, and ye have not been crowned yet. Ye are young brides, and the marriage-day is not come, and by the love your spouse bears you, you are led to long and to sigh for the marriage-day. Your very happiness makes you groan; your joy, like a swollen spring, longs to leap up like some Iceland Geyser, climbing to the skies, as it heaves and groans within the bowels of your spirit for want of space and room by which to manifest itself to men.

851. Sonship, Motives of

You could not hope to govern the nation by the same rules and methods with which as a father you order your family. In your family it may be there is not even a rod, certainly there is no policeman, no prison, no black cap, no transportation. Children are ruled by a father on a scheme essentially different from the rule of magistrates and kings. There are maxims of courts of legislature which would never be tolerated in the home of love. Just so within the family of God there are no penal inflictions, no words of threatening, such as must be employed by the great King when he deals with the mass of his rebellious subjects. Ye are not under the law, else were there judgment and curses for you; ye are under grace, and now the motives by which you are to be moved are such as might not affect others, but which, since you are renewed in the spirit of your mind, must powerfully affect you.

852. Sorrow, Brotherhood of As soldiers show their scars and talk of battles when they come at last to spend their old age in the country at home, so shall we in the dear land to which we are hastening, speak of the goodness and faithfulness of God which brought us through all the trials of the way. I would not like to stand in that white-robed host and hear it said, "These are they that come out of great tribulation, all except that one." Would you like to be there to see yourself pointed at as the one saint who never knew a sorrow? Oh, no! for you would be an alien in the midst of the sacred brotherhood. We will be content to share the battle, for we shall soon wear the crown and wave the palm.

853. Soul Engrossed with Christ That true man of God, Dr. Hawker—I am told by a friend of mine who visited him one morning—was asked to go and see a review that was then taking place at Plymouth. The doctor said, "No." My friend pressed him, and said, "I know you are a loyal subject, and you like to see your country's fleets; it is a noble spectacle." The doctor said no, he could not go; and being pressed until he was ashamed, he made this remarkable answer, "There are times when I could go and enjoy it, but mine eyes have seen the King in his beauty this morning, and I have had so sweet a sense of fellowship with the Lord Jesus, that I dare not go to look upon any spectacle lest I should lose the present enjoyment which now engrosses my soul." I think you and I have felt the same thing in our measure when Christ has manifested himself to us. What! look on vanity, my Lord, when thy hand has touched my heart—thy pierced hand?

854. Soul Sold to Satan

There is a story told of a most eccentric minister, that walking out one morning he saw a man going to work, and said to him, "What a lovely morning! How grateful we ought to be to God for all his mercies!" The man said he did not know much about it. "Why," said the minister, "I suppose you always pray to God for your wife and family—for your children—don't you?" "No," said he, "I do not know that I do." "What," said the minister, "do you never pray?" "No." "Then I will give you half-a-crown if you will promise me you never will as long as you live." "Oh," says he, "I shall be very glad of half-a-crown to get me a drop of beer." He took the half-crown, and promised never to pray as long as he lived. He went to his work, and when he had been digging for a little while, he thought to himself, "That's a queer thing I have done this morning—a very strange thing—I've taken money and promised never to pray as long as I live." He thought it over, and it made him feel wretched. He went home to his wife and told her of it."

"Well, John," said she, "you may depend upon it it was the devil, you've sold yourself to the devil for half-a-crown." This so bowed the poor wretch down that he did not know what to do with himself; this was all his thought, that he had sold himself to the devil for money, and would soon be carried off to hell. He commenced attending places of worship, conscious that it was of no use, for he had sold himself to the devil, but he was really ill, bodily ill, through the fear and trembling which had come upon him. One night he recognised in the preacher the very man who had given him the half-crown, and probably the preacher recognised him, for the text was, "What shall it profit a man if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" The preacher remarked that he knew a man who had sold his soul for half-a-crown. The poor man rushed forward and said, "Take it back! take it back!" "You said you would never pray," said the minister, "if I gave you half-a-crown; do you want to pray?"

"Oh, yes, I would give the world to be allowed to pray." That man was a great fool to sell his soul for half-a-crown, but some of you are a great deal bigger fools, for you never had the half-crown, and yet you do not pray, and I dare say never will, but will go down to hell never having sought God.

855. Soul, Wide View of the The eye needs to be far-seeing. It is a great pity when the eye can only see a short distance. We strain our natural eye to see some ship far out at sea, that looks perchance like a speck on the horizon, or we want to stretch our vision far over mountain and valley, river and lake, from some lofty Alp, compassing the entire prospect at a glance. But oh! it is well when our soul can take a wide view, and embrace the grand perspective which revelation unfolds, free from cloud and vapour, not pestered with the cares of the day so as to obscure the immortal joys that await our arrival at the city of the blessed; not earthbound, and absorbed by incidents that transpire within the tick of this clock, but prospecting the fields of light beyond, where moments, hours, days, years, and centuries of years are unknown.

856. Soul yielding to God's power

I looked last Friday night at a very remarkable sight, the burning of a huge floorcloth manufactory. I was just about returning home from my Master's work when I saw a little blaze, and in an incredibly short space a volume of fire rolled up in great masses to the skies. Why blazed it so suddenly? Why, because for months before many men had been busily employed in hanging up the floorcloth and in saturating the building with combustible materials; I do not mean with the intention of making a blaze, but in the ordinary course of their manufacture; so that when at last the spark came it grew into a great sheet of flame all at once. So sometimes when the gospel is faithfully preached a sinner gets present peace and pardon, and he is so full of joy his friends cannot make him out, his progress is so rapid. But be it remembered that God has been mysteriously at work months before in that man's heart, preparing his soul to catch the heavenly flame, so that there was only a spark needed, and then up rolled the flame to heaven. O that I could be that spark to some heart in whom God has been working this morning, but He alone can make me so! I noticed when that factory was on fire from top to bottom that it seemed to glow like pure gold, or like transparent glass, and then I expected to see it fall, and by-and-by fall it did, for after about half-an-hour all on a sudden one timber went over, and then the whole mass fell with a tremendous crash. I venture to compare that final crash with the actual salvation of a soul long prepared to receive it. The heart has been glowing with a divine desire, a heavenly flame for even months and years, and then at last, in a moment, the final movement is made, and doubts, and fears, and sins fall to the ground, and there is room to build a temple for the living God.

857. Soul Prosperity, Want of

John once wished for Gaius that his body might prosper and be in health even as his soul prospered. Now, suppose our bodies were to prosper just as our souls do! Why, there would sit in one place a living woman, and side by side with her a dead husband; further on a living child, and then a dead, grey headed grandsire. Oh, what a sight this place would be! We should hasten to gather up our skirts, those of us who are alive, and say, "Let us be gone! How can we sit side by side with corpses?" The effect would be startling to the last degree, and yet, most probably, the spiritual fact does not disturb us at all; we know it to be true, but we take it as a matter of course, and we go our way with scarce a prayer for our poor dead neighbours.

858. Soul's Flight to Christ

See that dove just taken from the cage to be set free. Tempt it to remain with you, cast down the seeds it loves to feed upon; no, it will not dwell with you, it mounts, it makes a few circles in the air, and then having turned its eye to the dear familiar dovecote, it is all wing for home. What can stay its flight? Call to it, allure it as you will, straight as an arrow from a bow it flies to its own beloved home, and rests not its weary wing till it rests in the house of its love. Even so is it with the believer's soul, let him but go free and have his desire, unbind him of his corruptions, strip him of his cares, liberate him from his unbelief, let him have his freedom, and he will fly at once to his Lord Jesus, nor will anything tempt him to linger or find solace save in that bosom of infinite love.

859. Souls Perishing, Uncared for

It would be an awful piece of brutality if a boatful of shipwrecked mariners, far out at sea, saw a vessel in the offing, and yet that vessel would not turn aside to help them. But that is the conduct of many professors of Christ; they see others perishing, but they will not tell them the way of salvation; they neither pray for them nor labour for them; but they let them go down to hell unwept, unpitied, and uncared for. Where are your bowels of compassion, professor, that you have done this? Perhaps you have done it; if so, do not merely regret, but earnestly amend.

860. Soul's Restlessness in Sin

How apt was the simile of the old Saxon chieftian, when he compared the unenlightened soul to the bird which flew in at the open windows of the banquet-hall, was scared by the uproarious shouts of boisterous warriors around the fire, and passed out again by another window into the cold and the darkness. Our spirit, attracted by the tempting glare, darts into the halls of pleasure, but anon is frightened and alarmed by the rough voice of conscience, and the demands of insatiable passions, and away it flies from the momentary gleam of pleasure and dream of happiness into the thick darkness of discontent, and the snow storm of remorse. Man, without God, is like the mariner in the story, condemned to sail on for ever, and never to find a haven. He is the real Wandering Jew, immortal in his restlessness.

861. Souls Saved, the Crown of Jesus

If like the old Swiss hero we could gather up all the death-bearing lances into our own bosom, and die in opening a road to victory for our fellow-soldiers, it were a destiny for which to bless God. It would be a glorious thing to die, if by our martyrdom the world might be won for him. High thrones for Jesus, where shall we find them? Bright crowns for Jesus, where shall we find them? We will snatch them from your heads, ye kings, if there be no others. Nay, but your diadems are too mean for his brow, and are only worthy to be thrown into the dust before him; they have not lustre enough for him. We will find jewels for him in the tears of penitents, and gold in the songs of believers. We will weave chaplets for him out of souls emancipated, and spirits perfected. He must have them; he must have them. Such a One as he cannot but be great unto the ends of the earth.

862. Souls' Haven, the Cross

While your bark is tossed about at sea, it is very likely that she wants a new copper bottom, or the deck requires holystoning, or the rigging is out of repair, or the sails want overhauling, or fifty other things may be necessary; but if the wind is blowing great guns, and the vessel is drifting towards those white-crested breakers, the first business of the mariner is to make for the haven at once, to avoid the hurricane. When he is all snug in port, he can attend to hull and rigging, and all the odds and ends besides. So with you, child of God, one thing you must do, and I beseech you do it. Do not be looking to this, or to that, or to the other out of a thousand things that may be amiss, but steer straight for the cross of Christ, which is the haven for distressed spirits; fly at once to the wounds of Jesus, as the dove flies to her nest in the cleft of the rock.

863. Souls of Men, Unfaithfulness to the

If you could but stand by one death bed where a soul is taking its leap in the dark; if for once in your lives you could hear the cries of a spirit as it enters into the thick darkness which is to be its everlasting abode; if you could but have painted before your eyes in verity the last tremendous day, and the multitudes on the left hand; if you could but gaze for a moment at the heaven which your own children I fear may miss through your indifference; or if you could but look but for a second upon that hell to which multitudes of your neighbours are descending every day, surely you would be down on your knees saying, "Forgive me, great God, for all my past neglect, and from this hour cleanse me from the blood of souls by the blood of Jesus, and help me to be instant in season and out of season in instructing my fellow men. Never from this day until I die may I neglect an opportunity of telling to men how they may be saved."

864. Sowing, the Preparation for Reaping

I find that upon some hearts warm earnest preaching drops like an unusual thing which startles but does not convince, and in other congregations, where good gospel preaching has been the rule, I can see the words drop into the hearers' souls, by the glancing of their eyes and the motions of their countenances. I can perceive that it is no new thing to them to hear the living truth, and that God has been setting some other brother both to plough and to sow, and to harrow, and that then he sent me, as he often does, to many churches, to be a reaper, and, though I may seem to bring in the sheaves, yet it is the previous work that made room for the reaper to do his happy business.

865. Spirit of God Needed in the Church

Without the Spirit of God, we are like to a ship stranded on the beach; when the tide has receded, there is no moving her until the flood shall once again lift her from the sands. We are like that frozen ship, of which we read the other day, frostbound in the far-off Arctic Sea: until the Spirit of God shall thaw the chilly coldness of our natural estate, and bid the life-floods of our heart flow forth, there we must lie, cold, cheerless, lifeless, powerless. The Christian, like the mariner, depends upon the breath of heaven, or his barque is without motion. We are like the plants of the field, and this genial season suggests the metaphor: all the winter through vegetation sleeps wrapped up in her frost garments, but when the mysterious influence of spring is felt, she unbinds her cloak to put on her vest of many colours, while every bud begins to swell and each flower to open. And so a church lies asleep in a long and dreary winter until God the Holy Ghost looseth the bands of lethargy, and hearts bud and blossom, and the time of the singing of birds is come.

866. Spiritual Forces The more spiritual a force is the less it lies within the chains of time. The electric current, which has a greater nearness to the spiritual than the grosser forms of materialism, is inconceivably rapid from that very reason, and by it time is all but annihilated. The influences of the Spirit of God are a force most spiritual, and more quick than anything beneath the sun. As soon as we agonise in soul the Holy Spirit can, if he pleases, convert the person for whom we have pleaded. While we are yet speaking he hears, and before we call he answers. Some calculate the expected progress of a church by arithmetic; and I think I have heard of arithmetical sermons in which there have been ingenious calculations as to how many missionaries it would take to convert the world, and how much cash would be demanded. Now, there is no room here for the application of mathematics; spiritual forces are not calculable by an arithmetic which is most at home in the material universe. A truth which is calculated to strike the mind of one man to-day may readily enough produce a like effect upon a million minds to-morrow. The preaching which moves one heart needs not to be altered to tell upon ten thousand. With God's Spirit our present instrumentalities will suffice to win the world to Jesus; without him, ten thousand times as much apparent force would be only so much weakness.

867. Spiritual Life the Gift of Christ The poor mariner's wife rushes down to the beach in the storm, and see, the waves at last have washed up her lost beloved, the father of the babe which is hanging at her breast. He is dead. The ungenerous sea has made a wife a widow. Oh, what would she not give, if she had it, to restore life once more to that well-beloved form! but life is a boon her prayers and tears cannot obtain. Herein is Jesus glorified, for he gives life to those who are spiritually dead, and if any one of you are weeping to-day over an unconverted husband, a child who is dead in trespasses and sins, a sister or a brother unsaved, Jesus can come to you and give life to your dear ones in answer to your prayers. He is himself the resurrection and the life.

868. Spiritual Man, Loneliness of the In the plain everything is in company, but the higher you ascend the more lone is the mountain path. At this moment there must be an awful solitude on the top of Mont Blanc. Where the stars look silently on the monarch of mountains, how deep the silence above the untrodden snows! How lonely is the summit of the Matterhorn, or the peak of Monte Rosa! When a man grows in grace he rises out of the fellowship of the many, and draws nearer to God. Unless placed in very happy circumstances, he will find very few who understand the higher life, and can thoroughly commune with him. But then the man will be as humble as he is elevated, and he will fall back necessarily, and naturally upon the eternal fellowship of God. As the mountain pierces the skies, and offers its massive peak to be the footstool of the throne of God, so the good man passes within the veil, unseen by mortal eyes, into the secret place of the tabernacle of the Most High, where he abides under the shadow of the Almighty.

869. Spiritual Prosperity Produced by Trial A child had a little garden in which it planted many flowers, but they never grew. She put them in, as she thought, tenderly and carefully, but they would not live. She sowed seeds and they sprang up; but very soon they withered away. So she ran to her father's gardener, and when he came to look at it he said, "I will make it a nice garden for you, that you may grow whatever you want." He fetched a pick, and when the little child saw the terrible pick, she was afraid for her little garden. The gardener struck his tool into the ground, and began to make the earth heave and shake, for his pickaxe had caught the edge of a huge stone, which underlayed almost all the little plot of ground. All the little flowers were turned out of their places, and the garden spoiled for a season, so that the little maid wept much. He told her he would make it a fair garden yet, and so he did, for having removed that stone which had prevented all the plants from striking root, he soon filled the ground with flowers which lived and flourished. So the Lord has come, and has turned up all the soil of your present comfort to get rid of some big stone that was at the bottom of all your spiritual prosperity, and would not let your soul flourish. Do not weep with the child, but be comforted by the blessed results, and thank your Father's tender hand.

870. Spiritual Taste

Many who see the dainties of God's Word pass them by. Like those poor hungry children that we have seen standing outside a shop where the savoury meat is just within the window: they can see it and smell it, but they cannot eat thereof. Many of our hearers have sense enough to perceive that there is something in the Bible that is very satisfying and nourishing; they see it with their eyes, but, like the men of Samaria, they taste not of it themselves. Ay, and there are some who are so far gone—and we were such once—that they have no wish to taste, for their palate has become so depraved that they feed upon ashes, a deceived heart turning them aside. Like the raven, which has no longing for the clean feeding of the dove, they are content with the carrion of the world; like the swine, they are satisfied with the husks, and they pine not to be fed with the children's bread.

871. Spirituality, Misconception of, by the Ungodly

I sat one day, at a public dinner, opposite a gentleman of the gourmand species, who seemed a man of vast erudition as to wines and spirits, and all the viands of the table; he judged and criticised at such a rate that I thought he ought to have been employed by our provision merchants as taster in general. He had finely developed lips, and he smacked them frequently. His palate was in a fine critical condition.

He was also as proficient in the quantity as in the quality, and disposed of meats and drinks in a most wholesale manner. His retreating forehead, empurpled nose, and protruding lips, made him, while eating at least, more like an animal than a man. At last, hearing a little conversation around him upon religious matters, he opened his small eyes and his great mouth, and delivered himself of this sage utterance, "I have lived sixty years in this world, and I never felt or believed in anything spiritual in all my life." The speech was a needless diversion of his energies from the roast duck. We did not want him to tell us that. I, for one, was quite clear about it before he spoke. If the cat under the table had suddenly jumped on a chair and said the same thing, I should have attached as much importance to the utterance of the one as to the declaration of the other; and so, by one sin in one man and another in another man, they betray their spiritual death. Until a man has received the divine life, his remarks thereon, even if he be an archbishop, go for nothing.

872. Spirituality and Orthodoxy

I believe that a spiritual mind is an orthodox mind. There is not much fear of our embracing any serious errors in the head when the heart is not in error, for there it is that heresies are born and bred, in that witches' caldron of our heart. Let the heart be constantly kept at the foot of the cross, and let the Holy Spirit bedew it with his sacred influence, and though we may for a little time, through our want of mental capacity, fail to understand the truth, it will not be for long. The Holy Ghost will lead us into all truth, and thus the text shall be fulfilled, "The Lord shall guide thee continually," whether as relating to matters of providence or to matters of doctrinal instruction.

873. Spring in the Soul

You never hear it said, "The world is not fit for the sun, because it is so dark; for where the sun comes he makes light;" and if after a long winter the world has grown cold and frostbitten, it is not said of the spring, "Thou must not come, for the world is not fit for thee!" No; but the genial influences of spring loosen the rivers, and clothe the earth with verdure, and bid the bonds of frost be removed; and so spring makes a palace fit for herself, and strews it with flowers from her own hands. My Master will come into your house and live, though you are not worthy that he should come under your roof.

874. State Alliance the Weakness of the Church The ark of God of old was never captured till it was defended with carnal weapons, and even then so soon as it was left alone it rescued itself. When there was not a soldier to take care of it, when it was imprisoned in the temple of Dagon, then Dagon fell, and Philistia was humbled. And so in England and Ireland, state alliance is bringing the gospel into jeopardy, but if that alliance can be broken, which is the worst of ills, then the gospel in its grandeur of unaided might will confound all adversaries. Never be afraid—it does not become a Christian to fear; it is unmanly, unchristian, to talk as if Christ's cause were going to be trampled out like a spark under our feet. It cannot be. As enduring as the earth itself, and more eternal far—as everlasting as the throne of God are the cross and honour and dignity of Christ. Let us feel this, for be must reign, and anticipated changes, instead of preventing him from reigning, will help him to reign more universally; and the shaking off of old abuses, instead of being an injury to the cross of Christ, will give its glories ampler space, for he must reign, let men say what they will.

875. State Church, Doom of the

We must expect often to hear that the ship of Christ's church is in a storm; there must not be smooth sailing for the vessel of the church; it must be tossed with tempest and driven to and fro. At the present juncture, all established churches are in the sieve. I believe there is much good corn in the established church, though intermixed with a sad amount of chaff; and now the whole is being sifted, and will be sifted yet more and more. I do not care who holds the sieve, whether it be a politician or an ecclesiastic, but I am persuaded that by God's grace good will come of all this strife, and debate, and agitation. The public mind when it stirs itself about religion is often mysteriously guided to the right path, and even if it choose a wrong thing for a season, yet the wrong only plays itself out, and the right by-and-by comes to the fore, and wins the victory. God will not have his church in alliance with the State; and therefore though they settle down upon their lees, and are at quiet in an adulterous connection with the powers that be, the trying time must come, and the sieve must be used. The true friends of the church need not wish for the sifting to be withheld, for not one grain of precious truth will fall to the ground: all that will perish will be the chaff, which it is a signal blessing to lose. Purification will be the result of agitation.

876. Stones, Voice of the

If the stones were to speak they could tell of their Maker; and shall not we tell of him who made us anew, and out of stones raised up children unto Abraham? They could speak of ages long since gone; the old rocks could tell of chaos and order, and the handiwork of God in various stages of creation's drama; and cannot we talk of God's decrees, of God's great work in ancient times, and all that he did for his church? If the stones were to speak they could tell of their breaker, how he took them from the quarry, and made them fit for the temple; and cannot we tell of our Creator and Maker, who broke our hearts with the hammer of his word that he might build us into his temple? If the stones were to speak, they would tell of their builder, who polished them and fashioned them after the similitude of a palace; and shall not we talk of our Architect and Builder, who has put us in our place in the temple of the living God? Oh, if the stones could speak, they might have a long, long story to tell by way of memorial, for many a time hath a great stone been rolled as a memorial unto God; and we can tell of Ebenezers, stones of help, stones of remembrance. The broken stones of the law cry out against us, but Christ himself, who has rolled away the stone from the door of the sepulchre, speaks for us. Stones might well cry out, but we will not let them: we will hush their noise with ours, we will break forth into sacred song, and bless the majesty of the Most High all our days.

877. Storm, God in the

I do not doubt that servants of God in times of danger at sea, when the huge billows have roared and the tempest has raged, and the vessel seemed likely to go to pieces, have often cheered their hearts with such a thought as this—"Now, he that holdeth the waters in the hollow of his hand, will take care of as, and cover us with his feathers, and under his wings may we trust." Perhaps at this very moment, down in some cabin, or amidst the noise and tumult, and the raging of the ocean, when many are alarmed, there are Christians with calm faces, patiently waiting their Father's will, whether it shall be to reach the port of heaven, or to be spared to come again to land, into the midst of life's trials and struggles once more. They feel that they are well-cared for, they know that the storm has a bit in its mouth, and that God holds it in, and nothing can hurt them; nothing can happen to them but what God permits.

878. Storm, the Voice of God in the

Some are particularly timid in times of storm, when the thunder comes peal upon peal, and the lightning flashes follow each other, when it seems as if the very earth did tremble, and the skies fled away from the glance of an angry God. Oh! how it calms the anxious breast, stills the boding fears, and makes the heart tranquil, to feel that he covers us with his feathers, and that under his wings we may trust. I always feel ashamed to keep indoors when peals of thunder shake the solid earth, and lightnings flash like arrows from the sky. Then God is abroad, and I love to walk out in the open space, and to look up and mark the opening gates of heaven, as the lightning reveals far beyond, and enables you to look into the unseen. I like to hear my heavenly Father's voice, but I do not think we could ever come to a state of peace in such times as those if we did not feel that he was near, that he was our friend, that he would not hurt the children of his own love.

879. Strength of God, a Believer's Defence As well should a bird with broken wing attempt to mount into the skies as you attempt to reach heaven by your own strength. As well should a child with a straw hope to stand against a host of armed men, as you to bear the onslaught of your spiritual enemies, unless the mighty God of Jacob should be your defence. Your warfare needs the Eternal arm to bear you through it, and yet you are weakness itself, how shall you be able to achieve the victory? Cease from self-confidence. Know yourself to be feebleness itself. Look above you to a nobler and surer source of strength than yourself.

880. Strife among Believers, Inconsistency of

I read a story the other day of an elder of a Scotch kirk, who at the elders' meeting had angrily disputed with his minister, until he almost broke his heart. The night after he had a dream which so impressed him, that his wife said to him in the morning, "Ye look very sad, Jan; what is the matter wi' ye?" "And well I am," said he, "for I have had a dream that I had hard words with our minister, and he went home and died, and soon after I died too; and I dreamed that I went up to heaven, and when I got to the gate, out came the minister, and put out his hands to welcome me," saying, "Come along, Jan, there's nae strife up here, I'm so glad to see ye." So the elder went down to the minister's house to beg his pardon, and found in very truth that he was dead. He was so smitten by the blow that within two weeks he followed his pastor to the skies; and I should not wonder but what his minister did meet him, and say, "Come along, Jan, there's nae strife up here." Brethren, why should there be strife below? Let us love each other, and by the fact that we are co-heirs of that blessed inheritance, let us dwell together as partakers of a common life, and soon to be partakers of a common heaven.

881. Students' Medicine

He who forgets the humming of the bees among the heather, the cooing of the wood-pigeons in the forest, the song of birds in the wood, the rippling of rills among the rushes, and the sighing of the wind among the pines, needs not wonder if his heart forgets to sing and his soul grows heavy. A day's breathing of fresh air upon the hills, or a few hours' ramble in the beech woods' umbrageous calm, would sweep the cobwebs out of the brains of scores of our toiling ministers who are now but half alive. A mouthful of sea air, or a stiff walk in the wind's face, would not give grace to the soul, but it would yield oxygen to the body, which is next best.

"Heaviest the heart is in a heavy air, Ev'ry wind that rises blows away despair." The ferns and the rabbits, the streams and the trouts, the fir trees and the squirrels, the primroses and the violets, the farm-yard, the new-mown hay, and the fragrant hops—these are the best medicines for hypochondriacs, the surest tonics for the declining, the best refreshments for the weary. For lack of opportunity, or inclination, these great remedies are neglected, and the student becomes a self-immolated victim.

882. Submission to God's Will As long as I trace my pain to accident, my bereavement to mistake, my loss to another's wrong, my discomfort to an enemy, and so on, I am of the earth earthy, and shall break my teeth with gravel stones; but when I rise to my God and see his hand at work, I grow calm, I have not a word of repining, "I open not my mouth because thou didst it." David preferred to fall into the hands of God, and every believer knows that he feels safest and happiest when he recognises that he is even yet in the divine hands. Cavilling with man is poor work, but pleading with God brings help and comfort. "Cast thy burden on the Lord" is a precept which it will be easy to practise when you see that the burden came originally from God.

883. Substitution of Christ The death of Christ gloriously set forth divine justice, because it taught manifestly this truth, that sin can never go without punishment. It is a law of God's moral universe that sin must be punished. He has made that as necessary as the law of gravitation. The law of gravitation he may suspend, the law of justice never. He will by no means spare the guilty. "The soul that sinneth—it shall die." "Cursed is every one that continueth not in all things that are written in the Book of the law to do them." As the Lord had appointed the salvation of his people, even this, the dearest desire of his soul, does not lead him to tamper with his inviolable law. No, a substitute shall be provided, who shall to the utmost farthing pay whate'er his people owe. Upon his head the fire-cloud shall discharge itself, and into his bosom shall be emptied out the coals of fire. No pardon without punishment! If the question be asked, "Why not?" it were enough to say that so long as God rules the universe he rules it in wisdom, and his wisdom knows that it would be unsafe if sin were at any time permitted to be blotted out, apart from satisfaction received. Christ, therefore, must himself give a satisfaction for sin, that this rule may be declared, and written upon the fore-front of the skies. God will not pardon sin by overlooking it. There must be redemption before there can be remission.

884. Substitution, The Sinner's Hope The doctrine of atonement, as it is often preached, is a hazy, misty doing of something by which the law is honoured, or perhaps dishonoured, for I scarce know which to call it; this yields me no joy; but when I know that Christ was literally and positively, not metaphorically and by way of figure, but literally and positively the substitute for his own people, and when I know that trusting in him I have the evidence of being one of his people, why my soul begins to say, Now let me live! I'm clean, through Jesu's blood I'm clean. Now let me die! for I shall boldly stand in the day of resurrection, through Jesus my Lord.

885. Success, All Divine

It is very significant that before Christ fed the thousands, he made the disciples sum up all their provisions. It was well to let them see how low the commissariat had become, for then when the crowds were fed they could not say the basket fed them, nor that the lad had done it. God will make us feel how little are our barley loaves, and how small our fishes, and compel us to enquire, "What are they among so many?" When the Saviour bade his disciples cast the net on the right side of the ship, and they dragged such a mighty shoal to land, he did not work the miracle till they had confessed that they had toiled all the night and had taken nothing. They were thus taught that the success of their fishery was dependent upon the Lord, and that it was not their net, nor their way of dragging it, nor their skill and art in handling their vessels, but, that altogether and entirely their success came from their Lord.

886. Suffering for Christ

Oh! what ought we not to suffer for our Lord! I feel as though I could blush scarlet that I should have to say a word to any of you about suffering for Christ, because what is it, what is it that we have to suffer? Pshaw! It is not to be talked of! Those were sufferings when women like Blandina were set in the red hot chair, or enveloped in a net and tossed upon the horns of bulls. Those were sufferings when they scraped the flesh from off the martyrs' bones. Those were sufferings when every bone was dislocated, and every sinew stretched upon the rack; or when, like the martyrs at Smithfield, men stood upon the burning fagot till each finger blazed like a candle, and yet shouted, "None but Christ!" Yes, those were tribulations indeed! But we are poor feather-bed soldiers. We have comparatively nothing to endure, and yet, young man, last week you were ashamed to own that you are a Christian, because—yes, because they chaffed you in the shop! And you, young woman, blushed to own that you had avowed your Lord in the despised ordinance of baptism when your friends were jeering you. O men and women, how little is your faith! And yet my Master is not angry with you. You little ones, he will comfort you, and strengthen you, and give you more faith, but still do you not feel ashamed to think you should ever have been ashamed of him?

887. Summer and Winter of the Church

All through the summer months, bright for the world, it is usually dark for the church. In the country towns the multitude engaged in agricultural occupations cannot be expected to come out to week-night services; and prayer-meetings, Bible-classes, and the like generally flag, while the long days demand longer labour. I do not say it is right that these meetings should flag so much as they do, but the fact remains that during the summer season there generally is a flagging of religious interest in the villages and towns; and even amongst ourselves it is to some extent the same. During the long days, the man who has to earn his bread with the sweat of his brow, must work, and it is only when the evenings begin to draw in, and the winter months come, that the happier seasons in the church arrive, and the winter becomes our summer, as the summer had been our winter. Right on from this period of the year the church should shake herself and say, "Now our harvest time comes; now is the period for kings to go forth to battle. God has given us the opportunity now, and we must avail ourselves of it, lest ere another harvest time is past, and another spiritual summer time Is ended, many may be where they can never be saved."

888. Sun, Glory of, and Emblem of Christ

What Milton calls the golden-tressed sun is the most glorious object in creation, and in Jesus the fulness of glory dwells; the sun is at the same time the most influential of existences, acting upon the whole world, and truly our Lord is, in the deepest sense, "of this great world both eye and soul;" he "with benignant ray sheds beauty, life, and joyance from above." The sun is, moreover, the most abiding of creatures; and therein it is also a type of him who remaineth from generation to generation, and is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. The king of day is so vast and so bright that the human eye cannot bear to gaze upon him; we delight in his beams, but we should be blinded should we continue to peer into his face; even yet more brilliant is our Lord by nature, for as God he is a consuming fire, but he deigns to smile upon us with milder beams as our brother and Redeemer. Jesus, like the sun, is the centre and soul of all things, the fulness of all good, the lamp that lights us, the fire that warms us, the magnet that guides and controls us; he is the source and fountain of all life, beauty, fruitfulness, and strength; he is the fosterer of tender herbs of penitence, the quickener of the vital sap of grace, the ripener of fruits of holiness, and the life of everything that grows within the garden of the Lord. Whereas to adore the sun would be idolatry, it were treason not to worship ardently the divine Sun of Righteousness.

889. Sunday-school Teachers, A Word to

I am afraid that very often the truth which we deliver from the pulpit—and doubtless it is much the same in your classes—is a thing which is extraneous and out of ourselves, like the staff which we hold in our hand but which is not a part of ourselves. We take doctrinal or practical truth as Gehazi did the staff, and we lay it upon the face of the child, but we ourselves do not agonise for its soul. We try this doctrine and that truth, this anecdote and the other illustration, this way of teaching a lesson and that manner of delivering an address; but so long as ever the truth which we deliver is a matter apart from ourselves and unconnected with our innermost being, so long it will have no more effect upon a dead soul than Elisha's staff had upon the dead child.

890. Sympathy Needful to Christ

There are men to whom it is a small matter to be friendless; their coarse minds scorn the gentle joys of fellowship. Sterner virtues may tread beneath their iron heel the sweet flowers of friendship; and men may be so defiantly self-reliant that, like lions, they are most at home amid congenial solitudes. Sympathy they scorn as womanish, and fellowship as a superfluity. But our Saviour was not such; he was too perfect a man to become isolated and misanthropical. His grand gentle nature was full of sympathy towards others, and therefore sought it in return. You hear the voice of grief at the loss of brotherly sympathy in the mournful accents of that gentle rebuke, "What, could ye not watch with me one hour?" How could they sleep whilst he must sweat; how could they repose while he was exceeding sorrowful even unto death? He showed the greatness of his soul even in its depression when he lovingly excused them by saying, "The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak."

891. Sympathy, Human, used by God

Disembodied spirits might have been sent to proclaim the word, but they could not have entered into the feelings of those who, being in this body, do groan, being burdened; angels might have been ordained evangelists, but their celestial attributes would have disqualified them from having compassion on the ignorant; men of marble might have been fashioned, but their impassive natures would have been a sarcasm upon our feebleness, and a mockery of our wants. Men, and men subject to human passions, the all-wise God has chosen to be his vessels of grace; hence these tears, hence these perplexities and castings down.